Six weeks after an incident at the Jim Ciccone Civic Centre required the evacuation of the facility the findings of WorkSafe BC have been made public, but the review of the report did not come from the City of Prince Rupert, which has been somewhat restrained when it comes to the way of updates since July 4th of last month.
The incident which took place late in the day on the fourth, brought a full response of emergency responders to the Civic Centre, required the evacuation of the complex and sent two residents to hospital for further treatment.
When we look back to that period, the City had actually done a commendable job of keeping the public up to date on the initial incident, with some timely updates from city staff.
However as the weeks went by, the updates stopped and the topic of the incident never delivered any public comments from the Mayor, or City Council members as the investigation into the incident got underway.
One opportunity was there for Council members to expand on the situation, coming with the July 23rd Council session and the Committee of the Whole process (a feature of council sessions that at one time City council had looked to modify, but wisely chose to leave as is), a meeting which lasted but twenty seven minutes with only the City Manager to speak briefly on the issue.
As we noted at that meeting last month, one resident did actually inquire as to the ammonia incident and if the report was to be made public, for his efforts he received a somewhat cryptic response from City Manager Robert Long who said at the time:
"We're investigating at this point and we'll have a report come forward, whether or not its public or not will have to remain to be seen, but at the moment we're investigating"
And that appears to have been the guiding theme for city staff, the Mayor and Council ever since, with absolutely no mention of the findings, or explanation for the public as to what went wrong on July 4th.
The Northern View picked up the trail of indecision by Council on the fate of any reports with the weekly paper posting this editorial on August 2nd.
On Friday, with fifteen days having expired since the city had been delivered the report on July 26th, the weekly paper gained access to the WorkSafe BC findings and published its contents, (read here)
In the WorkSafe BC Notes, six Order Items were flagged for attention by the City
Lack of immediate notification of the occurrence to WorkSafe BC
Cylinder stored without proper measures to secure it in place in container
No assessment of the risks posed by an accidental release from a 68kg cylinder of ammonia
Container that was used to hold hazardous substance was not designed, constructed or maintained in a condition to contain or secure the substance
No inventory maintained related to the ammonia storage in the 20 foot shipping container
No properly designated, designed of maintained storage area for a hazardous substance
In their article the weekly notes that the City's communications manager had advised the Northern View that they city has complied with all of the orders presented by WorkSafe BC as of their July 26th report.
Since the paper posted their story online late Friday afternoon, there has still been no official update from any City official elected, or staff, when it comes to the WorkSafe report that is now public.
Credit to the Northern View for providing the information, however the first source of that report and an explanation for the public should have come from some civic officials.
The Mayor, council members and staff clearly have dropped the information ball in this case, their social media accounts barren of any notes on the issue, as was the official City website.
Had they simply offered up some frequent updates, including the details of the WorkSafe BC report, they wouldn't appear to have been trying to lower the profile of what was a serious incident, one that could have ended very much worse.
For all the talk of a transparent and accountable civic government (something we will no doubt hear more about as we get closer to the election in October), the last six weeks seemed to show that sometimes that is more of a slogan for council members, than it is a guiding principle.
On the Civic Centre incident the Residents of Prince Rupert deserved better, Council needs to understand that information delivery is more than just photos of civic events and shout outs for their proposed vision plans and other initiatives.
Council and Staff also need to remember that sometimes, there is a need for cold, hard information, to be presented to the public, even if it doesn't put you in the best light and puts the spotlight on a fumbled issue.
For more items of note related to Prince Rupert City Council see our archive page here.
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