Sunday, May 6, 2012

WL Council Business - May 8th

1) Executive Committee  - this Committee is being formed at the direction of WL Mayor Cook.  Cook along with WL City Councillors Sue Zacharias and Ivan Bonnell will meet to discuss personnel issues when required.  While new to Williams Lake, Quesnel Council has had a 'Executive Committee' of its' own for some time now, its' structure includes the Mayor and two Quesnel City Councillors.  It'll be interesting to see why Mayor Cook has decided to form this Committee

2) Wheelchair Accessible Taxi - Read the Staff report here.  The following proposed resolution from City Staff made me 'nervous' when I initially read it:

Staff be directed to initiate dialogue with the owner of Town Taxi to encourage the company to purchase a wheelchair accessible vehicle in a timely fashion and reactivate their Wheelchair Accessible Taxi License with the Passenger Transportation Board; and further, should the local taxi company decline to purchase a wheelchair accessible vehicle, as requested, Council consider adopting a Bylaw that would require the local taxi company to incorporate a wheelchair accessible taxi in their fleet.


While I understand the need to have options for public transportation for those with disability issues after HandyDART shuts down for the day - I don't think Williams Lake Council should be ordering Town Taxi, as the predominant taxi company in the Williams Lake area, to get a wheelchair-accessible taxi 'or else'.  One person I talked with suggested that if the above Staff recommendation is adopted by WL Council on Tuesday - it could be interpreted as 'blackmail'.

While I don't personally agree that Staff's recommendation is 'blackmail' - it certainly has flaws in it including:

a ) Prince George/Kamloops has multiple taxi companies while Williams Lake has 1 dominating taxi company with another smaller taxi company

b) Requiring a taxi company to have a wheelchair-accessible taxi, as part of its' fleet, regardless of whether it makes business sense or not may not be the best approach to ensure the local government maintains its' 'business-friendly' stance.  A better approach is a partnership between Town Taxi, the City of WL and the general community to ensure that the greater Williams Lake area has access to a wheelchair-friendly taxi.  This was done before and I have no doubt, once again, a partnership for a wheelchair-friendly taxi can be formed to obtain/maintain a wheelchair-friendly taxi for the Williams Lake area.  It should be pointed out that Staff's recommendation for possibly passing a bylaw mandating that a local taxi compnay have a wheelchair-friendly taxi in its' fleet already occurs in Prince George, Kamloops and Vancouver

3) Survey for Woodland Dr residents re: Water/Sewer services - read Staff report here
4) Fire Lane surrounding CMRC (local Recreation Complex) to be closed permanently to public - read here


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

On the topic of the taxi:
Whats next? A city bylaw that all car dealerships must have a certain percentage of handicap accesible vehicles on their lots? That beauty salons must have one sink dedicated to wheelchair accesability? That all downtown businesses and apartments must be handicap accessable?
Perhaps we could go one further and say that all restaurants must have gluten free or nut free menu items?
I'm not trying to downplay the needs and struggles that handicap people go through everyday as I can't even imagine how much strength and courage it takes to deal with day to day issues most of us take for grantid My concern is that the city wants to mandate that town taxi have such a vehicle no matter if it is finacially feasable or business smart to have one.
Perhaps the city should look at offsetting some of the costs for town taxi to help them with this insted of raising taxes 6% for their business as they have done this year. Or better yet why doesn't the mayor and crew put in their own personal money to buy such a vehicle for town taxi to operate? Seems fair to me as why should town taxi be forced to make this community "donation" on their own?
I'm sure the taxi companies would love to have a vehicle such as this, just as I would love to buy one for them, as it is for a great cause but sometimes it is just not affordable. Last time I checked money does not grow on trees.