KAGAWONG—Despite voicing concerns with the Billings’ waterfront improvement plan summary, Mayor Austin Hunt said he supports council’s decision to forward the plans to funding agencies.
“I’m not as enthusiastic as the rest of council with the summary plan but I don’t want to upset the apple cart and I will support council’s decision to go ahead with the plan and send it to funding agencies,” Mayor Hunt told the Recorder after a recent council meeting. “Clearly it is the wish of council to forward this summary plan to funding agencies so I will support that.”
Mayor Hunt noted, “the main concerns I have is that they (consultants-engineers) keep changing things in the report, and my main concern in the proposal to have floating docks from the main dock it could curtail the docking of cruise ships and the use of the bay and the docks. It could potentially keep cruise ships from docking here.”
Mayor Hunt told the Recorder there are a number of things that should have been corrected in the summary plan.
At the council meeting held earlier this month, Councillor Tom Imrie pointed out, “the summary provides the opportunity to modify things if needed. Nothing is cast in stone, there can be changes made to it.”
This comes after council reviewed the possibility of forwarding the Billings’ waterfront improvement plan to its funding agencies and differing opinions were offered on this idea.
“My concern is that we’ve had this summary plan done, and we have a time element that we have to keep in mind for forwarding this to funding agencies,” said Councillor Sharon Alkenbrack. “What we are doing is applying for funding using this summary plan as a concept. If we receive funding approval we will have to go through the environmental assessment before anything can be done, and changes after that, or other changes may have to be carried out at that time.”
“This is basically a concept design of the project,” said Councillor Tom Imrie. “This design outlines what we would like to see conceptually, but changes could, and may have to be made, later. Nothing is concrete at this point, especially until we are approved for funding.”
Councillor Barb Erskine said, “we need to get this summary submitted as soon as possible to funding agencies—time is of the essence. Then if funding is provided changes can be looked at for the plan.”
It was pointed out the longer the delay in sending the summary plan to funding agencies the less chance the municipality will have for receiving funding support for the project.
A motion was put forward by Councillor Imrie and seconded by Councillor Brian Parker to agree council will have the summary plan forwarded to funding agencies.
“I don’t think this summary will fly the way it is,” said Mayor Hunt.
“All we are doing is submitting the summary to the funding agencies,” said Councillor Imrie, and changes could, and may be, required if funding is approved.
Councillor Parker offered that if it is plausible to Mayor Hunt, possibly the motion could read that council agrees in principle.
“It’s a summary of the document we received,” said Ms. Erskine. “I think we should go forward. This summary is more digestible for funders, and that was the point of the executive summary. Changing the summary makes no sense. It’s a concise version of what was in the report. This is just a summary and things can be changed in the actual work that is carried out.”
“It will allow for change,” agreed Councillor Alkenbrack.
Council voted on the motion with Councillors Imrie, Erskine and Alkenbrack in favour and Mayor Hunt and Councillor Parker standing down, meaning the plan will be sent to founding agencies.
