Saturday, September 29, 2012

WL Rural Fringe Fire Protection Referendum Question

In mid-late September - the Cariboo Regional District surveyed residents on the rural fringe of Williams Lake about the future of rural fire protection after January 1st, 2013 and the results were, as at September 21st

Area D:

Receive fire protection from Williams Lake - 45
Receive fire protection from Wildwood VFD - 6

Area E:

Receive fire protection from Williams Lake - 81
Start new fire protection service - 2
No fire protection - 0

Area F:

Receive fire protection from Williams Lake - 8
Receive fire protection from 150 Mile VFD - 6

As a consequence - CRD Administrator Janis Bell has asked the Board to endorse one of two referendum question options:

1) Conduct one referendum question only for all residents currently covered by the City of Williams Lake fire department to continue to receive fire protection services from the City

2) Conduct two simultaneous referendum questions to expand the 150 Mile Fire Protection boundaries and to create a new service for the remaining fringe area residents to receive fire protection services from the City of Williams Lake.

Read Ms. Bell's report on the above here

Given the above survey results - my enlightened opinion would be the Board should endorse Option 1 as it seems most residents' favour staying with the City of WL for fire protection with the exception of Area 'F' which seems to be evenly split between City of WL and 150 Mile VFD

After deciding the referendum question issue - CRD Staff has presented the Board with the appropriate Bylaw to move to 3rd Reading and appointing a Chief and Deputy Chief Election Officer and advance poll opportunities on Nov 14th (Wed) and Nov 19th (Mon)



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