Council raises
District of Squamish mayor and council will likely soon see their pay cheques increase after council passed three readings of a bylaw to increase their pay at Tuesday’s meeting.
Council voted to increase the mayor’s annual remuneration, as of Jan. 1 2017, to $73,582 from $67,167 and councillors’ remuneration to $31,640 from $28,893. Remuneration totals $275,933 for mayor and councillors, including the acting mayor remuneration and a 1.87 per cent cost-of-living adjustment on the 2016 rate.
Earlier this year, council received a BCIT study that showed Squamish local government remuneration was lower than similar communities.
That study was followed by a District of Squamish staff review of remuneration that found the same thing.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman and Coun. Susan Chapelle were not at the meeting Tuesday.
Portal for Woodfibre LNG
The online portal planned by local government leaders in meetings held in Squamish this past winter won’t be run by Woodfibre LNG as originally planned, a letter from MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones revealed.
The letter from Goldsmith-Jones was submitted to council on Tuesday.
The online portal, which is supposed to make monitoring of the Woodfibre LNG facility simpler and more transparent for the public, will be run by government, not proponents, the letter states.
Goldsmith-Jones attached another letter from Jonathan Wilkinson, MP for North Vancouver, that stated the portal would be similar to the British Columbia Mine Information Website and would share “up to the minute” information from various levels of government on progress, oversight and approvals of the project. It could eventually post live reporting of incidents and comments from the public, the letter states.
Back to the original
Mount Garibaldi may soon have a new – old – name. The District of Squamish council agreed at its meeting Tuesday night to support an initiative by students at Sea to Sky Learning Connections, in the Learning Expeditions program, to rename the famous local mountain to its original Coast Salish name, Nch’Kay.
Council agreed to send a letter to the provincial government in support.
Building fails at council
It all came down to parking.
Shovels will not soon be in the ground on a proposed six-storey, mixed-use development downtown.
Council turned down the project’s development permit Tuesday night due to the parking variances requested.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman and Coun. Susan Chapelle were away. Only Coun. Jason Blackman-Wullf voted for the proposal.
The development by Megadex International Investments Corp. on the corner lot at 1365 Victoria St. was to have 32 housing units and close to 650 square metres (7,000 square feet) of commercial space.
The housing units were one and two-bedrooms.
The variances included accepting $72,000 cash-in-lieu in place of 12 commercial parking spaces and removing a loading space.
As part of the permit, the first priority would have been for the cash-in-lieu amount to go to a District car share program.
Coun. Karen Elliott said she thinks the community is going toward a less car dependent society, but we aren’t there yet.
The lack of commercial parking was too much, she said. Coun. Peter Kent agreed with Elliott.
Coun. Ted Prior also agreed the lack of parking was a problem for him. He also said the proponents had not offered enough of a community amenity package for him to support it.
The property involved used to house an annex building to the Chieftain Hotel, but it was destroyed in a fire more than a decade ago.
The proponent can come back with a revamped proposal for the property at a later date.
