For those in Williams Lake - your Williams Lake Council, in Committee of the Whole, will consider the following:
Delegation:
1)Sonya Kruger from the BC Cancer Society - New Cancer Centre for the North in Prince George & the Provision of Cancer Care
Business:
1) External Auditing - Request for Proposals. Read here. This item was at the request of Councillor Ivan Bonnell after the appointment of PMT for the 2012 year end process (auditing process). In fact, Council should look at combining common services needed by Quesnel, Williams Lake, and 100 Mile House, thereby extending buying power by using less taxpayer money in individual municipalities
2) Electronic Cheques - read here. I suggested to Council's General Governance Committee Chair (and City Councillor) Geoff Bourdon that the amount recommended for an electronic signature should be higher than recommended ($500 recommended, Steve says it should be $2,000 as anything over that should be reviewed personally, in addition the Cheque Signing Policy should be amended to update Staff Titles). Councillor Bourdon's response was:
Thanks for the ideas Steve, we are definitely going to look at the whole thing.
Haha add it to the list right?!
3) Request from Burger Barn to setup in Spirit Square. Read here. From my perspective, this would be a welcome addition to the downtown core and Council should think about a "trial run" and see if it works out well and if so - then setup an application process but I believe the additional foot traffic that Burger Barn would bring to the downtown core would be welcome by downtown businesses
4) Bring in Accessible Parking Bylaw - read here. For my part, any bylaw should include a severe fine for those who choose to park in handicap parking spots for the sake of convenience, rather than leaving those places for those who truly need it. My own thought would be a $1,000 fine for those who choose to park in these places as it would be provide ample incentive not to use a handicap place for the sake of parking convenience, rather than leaving those spots open for the individuals it was designed for
5) BC Ambulance Service seeks office space at WL Fire Hall for 'District Supervisor' position - read here
6) Should WL Fire Department respond to 'Motor Vehicle Incidents' or MVI's? RCMP/BC Ambulance says 'Yes' - read more here. It should be noted that Councillor Bonnell asked for this topic recently to come forward for discussion. In addition, I've run into some volunteers from CCSAR who feel strongly that MVI's should be responded to only by CCSAR volunteers. I'll be interested in seeing if Williams Lake Council thinks MVI's should be part of the mandate of the Williams Lake Fire Department. In more recent times, the local Fire Department has broadened itself into more 'non-traditional' areas of firefighting including response to MVI's and Hazardous Material incidents....
SBF
4 comments:
It does not seem fair that CCSAR does the job for free and the WLFD gets paid when they are not even certified to do vehicle extractions and such.
I believe this is another case of building a city "empire" where before you know it this little city will have full time firefighters on salary. Perhaps that is why our palace of a firehall already has living quarters in it. hmmmm I love it when a plan comes together.
Issues such as downed lines and such, which are noted by the RCMP as well as BC Ambulance letters, are delt with by Hydro and not by the WLFD.
Not to take anything away from what the firefighters do as we all owe them a huge thanks for what they do which is fighting fires. I however find it unnecessary to have them show up to every accident sceen when 99% of the time there is nothing for them to do.
If the RCMP and Ambulance want/need them there who are you to dispute this being right or wrong? Are you putting a value on human life?
Even if they "do nothing" 99% of the time you'd better hope you (or your family members or friends) not involved in that 1% accident and have to wait for the FD to come and extract you from a burning vehicle.
I'm not willing to gamble on that.
Maybe council should do something worthwhile, like I don't know setting some goals for this city. All they do now is mess around with vehicle policies fire dept policies cheque signing policies. Don't they have managers to do that stuff? How about actually leading the community. We didn't elect them to be administrators.
They are too busy penny pinching in an area that will cost lives. Meanwhile they can't find a way to get roads paved or do anything worthwhile.
If we are not willing to gamble at all with our safety do we need to swap in our ambulances with helicopters as they would be much quicker and perhaps save someones life?
Can we afford to be this safe or where do we draw the line?
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