At Tuesday's Williams Lake City Council meeting - Council dealt with a number of matters including requesting mediation for the CRD Rural Fire Protection file and receiving a Jan 18th letter from Cariboo RD Area 'F' Director Joan Sorley, in her capacity as Chair of the CRD Central Cariboo Rural Caucus/Co-Chair of the Central Cariboo/City of WL Joint Committee, advising that the Jan 23rd meeting of the Joint Committee would be cancelled, as CRD Directors' would not show up for that meeting and final adoption of the Pool Task Force would be deferred until such time as the Rural Fringe Fire Protection file is resolved
On Joan Sorley's Jan 18th letter to WL Council - read here
While Councillors' Bourdon, Bonnell, Walters and Mayor Cook asked CRD Directors' (Bischoff, Kemp and Sorley) to focus on the 'regional picture' and Councillor Walters/Bourdon made mention of the 'positive' things that the CRD/City of WL did together like Arts/Culture/Heritage and Recreation. Councillor SPS Rathor went on the attack and said if any one was bullying here, it was the Regional District and made mention of comments made at the Jan 17th CRD-hosted Fire Protection meeting where some from the rural areas said the City's recent action on Rural Fire Protection smacked of 'greed'. Of course, contrary to Rathor's belief -- residents and not CRD Directors' made those 'greed' comments.
Meanwhile - the underlying tone of the comments of most of WL Council was one of:
Central CRD Directors' are being childish/irresponsible by not showing up to Joint Committee meetings and things get resolved 'at the table' and not away from it
Personally - I profoundly regret the tone used by WL City Council members launched at CRD Directors'. Council should have simply agreed to receive the letter and requested them to return to the Joint Committee to hammer out any disagreements...
Council has formally asked for a meeting with the CRD Chair/Vice-Chair (A. Richmond/T. Armstrong) to resolve this issue ASAP. This will be a first in that a municipality has , in the time that I can remember, where requested the Cariboo RD Chair/Vice-Chair help resolve a dispute on a sub-regional level between a municipal government and CRD Rural Directors'. This option was not even used during the City of Quesnel/CRD Directors' fights between 2003-2008. Mayor Cook stated that she'll be meeting with Director Sorley soon on this item and seek resolution to see the Joint Committee active once again. Stay tuned - we'll see if intervention by Al Richmond/Ted Armstrong can help get the Central Cariboo Joint Committee meetings resume once again
On Mediation to resolve Court Fight -- City of WL v Cariboo Regional District: read here
As I expected - Mayor Cook warned Council to keep very close control of their comments as the Civil Action limits what Council can say in public. All of Council agreed mediation is the best option to get a resolution on the CRD Rural Fringe Fire Protection. Councillor Hughes did ask about who a mediator potentially might be. City Acting CAO Geoff Goodall stated that agreement between the City/CRD would need to be had on a mediator but it was probable that a mediation (whoever he/she is) would come from the Lower Mainland
The motion for mediation was agreed to unanimously
As I've stated previously -- I don't expect the CRD to consider mediation which they are going through a survey process with CRD Areas D, E,F residents' which concludes Monday at 4:30pm. After the results are in and the meeting on Feb 12th occurs - then the results from the Feb 12th meeting will dictate what CRD Directors' Sorley, Kemp and Bischoff do next. My gut feeling on the surveys will bear out that rural residents' will ask their elected officials to seek a Court order to have the City provide fire protection until a VFD (Volunteer Fire Department) to cover rural fringe areas (CRD Areas D,E,F) just outside the City of WL boundaries is up and running
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