North Coast Regional District is set to enter a partnering agreement with the City of Prince Rupert owned communication company CityWest, with a public notice in the current edition of the weekly paper noting of the provision of a grant funding financial contribution of $505,828 dollars as part of the agreement.
As part of the terms of that arrangement, Regional District notes that they are anticipating a return on the investment through a revenue sharing agreement over a thirty year period.
The Notice so far has not been posted to the North Coast Regional District website, and that portal offers up no explanation to date as to the nature of the partnering agreement.
Likewise the CityWest information page also has no information to share on the scope of the agreement and what the funding provided will be put towards.
Residents of the region may gain some insight into the financial moves by next week, with the Regional body of government set to host its monthly Board meeting tonight.
The Agenda for tonight's session however makes no mention of CityWest or plans for loans, so any updates on the proposal will have to come by way of questions from Directors, or perhaps with a full information release from either the Regional District or CityWest, one hopefully that will fill in some of the details for the public (and shareholders if you will) from the short public notice in the paper.
CityWest has been on an ambitious expansion plan in recent months, as well as an accelerated roll out of its delivery of the Connected Coast program both in the Northwest, on Haida Gwaii, the Central Coast and Vancouver Island.
More notes on CityWest can be reviewed here.
While past items of interest from North Coast Regional District can be explored here.
There is a trend, first evident with the city and now with the regional district, of investing public funds in private sector activity apparently with the hope of a return on investment somewhere down the road, in this case far down the road it seems. And there is little or no information beyond legal notices, or public discussion of any kind. Maybe municipal politicians should leave the money in the pockets of taxpayers to make their own investment decisions, or focus more on delivering better municipal services rather than entering the commercial mainstream with taxpayers' money. It's a concerning trend.
ReplyDeleteYou should put your nomination papers in and do it! Oh wait…
DeleteNot sure you are quite on top of how representative democracy works. Residents of a community shouldn't have to actually 'put your nomination papers in' to run for office to learn as to how those that are elected, or in this case for some, appointed to an office choose to spend money ... it's called transparency and accountability and it seems that at times there is not a lot of that around here. NCR
DeletePlease stop using our tax dollars to subsidize a municipal telecom that uses out of date hardware and would rather complete fibre projects in Fraser Lake than in their monopolized home market of Prince Rupert.
ReplyDelete