Infrastructure correspondences make for Comments at City Council session

Councillor Nick Adey and Mayor Herb Pond offered up 
to slightly different interpretations of a recent correspondence
from the Federal government on local infrastructure issues
as part of the discussion at Monday's Council Session

Monday's Prince Rupert City Council session provided the Council members with a look at a pair of correspondence to the City related to recent infrastructure themes. 

As we outlined on Monday,  one of the letters was from Mr. Dominic Leblanc the Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, a letter sympathetic to the city's plight, but a document not really offering any financial reassurance for the issues at hand of late.

The second document was the information release related to last weeks funding announcement related to the city's pilot project for a wastewater treatment system.

The two themes made for some comments from Councillor Nick Adey, who expressed his pleasure at the grant funding, while also noting of the tone of the Federal Minister's letter to the Mayor.

"My interpretation of the two letters we got, is that one of them represents good news and one of them represents perhaps not so good news.

So the good news I think is the one from FCM and the Minister of Natural Resources in support of the innovative waste water treatment plant to the tune of 400,000 dollars or so.

The more difficult one I think, is the one from Minister LeBlanc,  of Intergovernmental affairs 

Just to sort of note a couple of points that make me feel that it's not so positive, I'm quoting  from the letter now: "There are programs in place under the purview of my colleague, it is provincial , territorial municipal, orders of government that are responsible" and then over the page "I never-the-less encourage the City of Prince Rupert to continue exploring alternative solutions" 

That sounded a lot to me like good luck.

In response to the Councillors themes Mr. Pond outlined his thoughts on the two correspondences.

"I agree with you, so I think the $487,000 grant from FCM is wonderful and that is for the pilot project up around Omenica to do the sewage treatment and so that's great.

I characterize the letter, but perhaps I'm getting battle weary; I characterize the letter from Minister LeBlanc a little differently.

We had a previous letter from the Minister, that was much more, kind of I felt saying no in multiple nice ways. 

This one I felt  was kind of pointing a little bit more, in particular the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, so ... Im hopeful.

But I will admit that the rose coloured glasses are definitely  on ...  it's a No, I mean let's call it what it is, it's a No from the Minister with perhaps some daylight in a couple of other ministries.

And by the way, we will be going, it looks like we will be going to Ottawa to press this case further"

Councillor Adey followed up with an observation as to how the City has gained the attention on the issue.

"The good news is that we're clearly able to sit in the room with people that have some control over these affairs and it is an issue of agreed upon concern, which is a good thing"

Mayor Pond offered up a few closing thoughts on the topic .

"I'll point out just for citizens that might be listening, even in this letter the Minister mentions our MP Taylor Bachrach and his efforts on our behalf.  

And I've gotta  tell you, I'll report more fully later, but  I have been in multiple places where I've met up with Taylor and had great discussions and I know he's working the file very hard on our behalf at the Federal level"

You can review their discussion to the topic from the City's Video archive starting at the 3 minute mark.

As we noted last night, the issue of the City's infrastructure dilemmas made for a presentation by Skeena-Bulkley Valley MP Taylor Bachrach on Monday, he raised the city's challenges and called for a Federal response as part of Question Period.

The reply from Mr. LeBlanc perhaps indicating that there may be some future news ahead to help towards the issue.

That making for an additional item to add to your check list as you decide if you're on Team Pond or Team Adey, when it comes to how the Federal government is viewing the situation. 

Not mentioned as part of the discussion was some additional funding that is coming the way of Prince Rupert, that following North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice's notes on Friday that highlighted that Prince Rupert would be receiving just over 4 million dollars for infrastructure needs, that as part of the recently announced 1 Billion dollar fund from the Province.

More notes from Monday's Council Session can be reviewed here. 

You can review the city's infrastructure challenges from our archive page here.