Sunday, September 26, 2021

Blog Watching: Week ending September 26, 2021

A week of extreme weather coincided with the arrival of Fall to the North Coast and the change of the seasons delivered a range of weather related headaches for both the City of Prince Rupert and its residents. 

The largest of which has made for a return to Boiling our water as the Shawatlans water supply once again saw a rise in turbidity and other storm related issues.

The weather may have been the main narrative of the week, but with a City Council Session taking place on Monday night, a number of Council themes dominated the most read listings for the blog for the week.

Among them, Council's discussion on how they may approach fixing smaller scale infrastructure items in local neighbourhoods, that by way of a local tax for those areas interested in the work. That was a discussion that also provided for a glimpse at how Mayor Brain views the infrastructure priorities that the City has to attend to.

Housing themes also made for some note on the week, with the City Councillors introducing a Renoviction Bylaw for the community, as well as to post answers to a number of questions related to the Lax Kw'alaams Housing proposal that were received at the suspended Public Hearing of August.

Council also set the date for the resumption of that Public Hearing, which will take place on October 4th with the Councillors perhaps looking to bring the long running process for the proposal to some form of a conclusion next month.

And North Coast residents, like those across the province and the nation went to the polls this past Monday, and in the Northwest, when the voting was finished, incumbent Taylor Bachrach was returned to office as the Member of Parliament for Skeena-Bulkley Valley.

However, the top item of interest for the week was the week of extreme weather and the impact it has once again had on the City's water supply.

Back to the Boil Water Orders for Prince Rupert -- Prince Rupert residents have put the water on boil and stocked up on bottled water after another round of extreme weather stirred up the turbidity at Shawatlans Lake.  Mayor Lee Brain provided for the City's recap of the current situation following the introduction of the Boil Water Notice through his social media stream. A look back at some of the impact from the twin weather systems of the week can be reviewed here and here.    (posted September 21, 2021)

That article was followed by: 

Prince Rupert City Council sends Local Services Taxation Plan back to city staff for some additional tweaking -- A lengthy discussion at Monday's Council session explored the merits of the city creating a policy to fix neighbourhood infrastructure through a local tax levy, one specific to residents in the area in question. The topic was one which also provided opportunity for a second story related to  Prince Rupert Mayor Lee Brain's  review of the city's priorities for infrastructure spending, something which generated some interest in our comments section.    (posted  September  23 , 2021) 

Research on 11th Avenue Housing questions now available for public review on City Council Agenda Page for tonight's session -- Those that attended the suspended Public Hearing of August on the Lax Kw'alaams led Housing proposal for 11th Avenue East will want to head to the City of Prince Rupert website, where a pair of documents related to their questions from the night have been posted providing some answers to some of their questions on that night. Monday night also saw City Council move forward to resume that suspended Public Hearing, with Council setting the October 4th Council night for the conclusion of the Hearing into the apartment proposal.    (posted September 20, 2021)
  
City's Renoviction Bylaw to serve as a supplement to provincial legislation -- Prince Rupert City Council members introduced their plan to address the concerning situation of renovictions in the city. With Councillors putting in motion a bylaw to discourage landlords from evicting tenants for building renovations. The City's document will be one which works as a complement to recent provincial legislation; with the latter document hosting elements that would supersede some of the city's measures.   (posted September  22, 2021)

Taylor Bachrach heads back to Ottawa with a repeat election victory; but much to consider from the Monday night vote question  -- Skeena-Bulkley Valley NDP MP Taylor Bachrach's opponents may have had more votes when combined, compared to the incumbents totals on the night.  But his vote count was the largest in total per party and that made him the first past the post on Election night. A success which sends the candidate back to Ottawa for a new term of office in yet another minority Canadian Parliament.   (posted September 21 , 2021) 

You can find our weekly Blog watching feature posted every Sunday morning by 9AM, making for a handy way to catch up to the week that was, at a leisurely weekend pace.

You can also review the full listings of the week just past, from our Blog Archive index page found on the right hand side of the page.

A note for those that previously used our email alert delivery option, Blogger has discontinued that feature, so we direct you to our CharlesMHays Twitter feed, where we post updates to the blog as we post them.

Our archive of weekly Blog Watching can be found here.   

To view the most recent blog posting of the day, click here.

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