The Mayor appears to be taking the point position for the City through his political Facebook page with three updates now delivered through Social media on the topic of the city's current water woes.
They are mostly contributions that don't stray much from the original talking points of December 14th and lately seem to indicate that the current situation may be a longer lasting process than originally indicated.
When it comes to the rest of the Prince Rupert council members, the city's six councillors have not been a particularly talkative group over the last three weeks, appearing to leave the main talking points to the Mayor's social media stream for the most part.
Also of note and missing from the community dialogue on the situation has been much in the way of a contribution to the topic from North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice.
Over the last three weeks, the MLA for the region has offered up a range of other topics for consideration through her social media portals.
Included among the flow of news, some celebratory posts on the achievements of the NDP government from the year just past, along with a request for some fundraising help for the NDP from residents of the riding.
But from that stream of commentary over the last month, there have only been a few mentions of the ongoing concerns related to the water supply in Prince Rupert.
Ms. Rice first made note of the Boil Water Notice on December 15th and among her thoughts, she expressed a preference for boiled water over the bottled variety as that first week moved forward.
Since then however, the topic of Prince Rupert water has not really held much in the way of content for what has become her main form of communication for her with the residents of the riding.
For those that may be wondering whether there is any assistance the province may be able to offer to the City to address the short and now what seem to be long term issues ahead, the comment or guidance from the MLA for the North Coast has been rather lacking since the Boil Order was first announced on December 14th.
She did take to her Facebook page just before Christmas to urge residents to lend a hand for the Emergency Homeless Shelter on Third Avenue which at the time was in need of bottled water, a request that we are sure that Prince Rupert residents were quick to respond to at the time.
That contribution however was a bit of an eye catcher, leaving one to wonder if there is not some kind of provincial program in place to help out communities (not to mention Seniors and Elders who may not have access to bottled water) in such situations.
Surely if anyone may know what, if any help the province may be able to provide, one imagines it would be the Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness.
For the most part though, through the near one month of her constituents boiling their water, the MLA has kept to a somewhat low profile; all while the community itself has put the issue at the top of the discussion list.
Ms. Rice may however have an opportunity to share some notes with the city's municipal leadership by next week's city Council session.
In the latest of information posts to his Facebook page, Mayor Lee Brain noted that discussions related to the water issues are planned with provincial officials this month.
The Mayor and Council will be exploring the situation further at the first Council session for 2019 on January 14th, perhaps by that time, residents of Prince Rupert will have heard how the MLA for the region plans to become a forceful advocate for her community in a time of challenge.
More notes related to the current Boil Water situation can be found on our archive page here.
A look at the work of the MLA from the Legislature can be explored here.
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