City of Powell River council will consider endorsing a contribution toward a qathet Regional District (qRD) study into an on-demand shuttle system in the rural region.
At the July 19 committee of the whole meeting, councillors received correspondence from qRD chief administrative officer Al Radke asking if the city, as a member of the regional public transportation exploration working group, had a desire to contribute an original $5,000 toward the study. The regional district received a $50,000 grant from the federal government in support for planning and design.
Councillor Cindy Elliott said transportation is a huge priority for the city.
“We’ve been working on trying to move forward with options for a while now,” said Elliott. “I’m wanting to provide direction to somehow visit this and wrap our heads around it in combination with what we have already been doing so we are not working against ourselves. I think what we want is for staff to tell us if this is consistent with everything we have done already, or if it’s a new thing.”
Councillor George Doubt said he wanted to make a motion to receive the correspondence. He said the regional district has applied to the federal government for a grant to do a study of on-demand transportation in the electoral areas. The study is to see if it is feasible to set up some sort of an on-demand transit service for those areas, he added.
“It doesn’t include on-demand transit in the city,” said Doubt. “The regional district has $50,000 from higher levels of government and there is another $15,000 that is required. The regional district is asking the city if it would like to contribute $5,000 toward that study.”
Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman said she believes the city allocated $5,000, so Radke was asking if council will contribute the original $5,000.
“I think we moved to contribute to that working group towards this type of work,” said Leishman. “I don’t know where that’s at. That’s a question for staff to come back and let us know.”
Councillor Jim Palm said as a member of the working group, he could report that he was tasked with bringing the matter back to council.
“I discussed it with chief administrative officer Russell Brewer, who suggested leaving the matter with him, and that he would deal with it with Radke,” said Palm. “At that time, we had not received the additional $50,000. Now that they’ve got the $50,000, they are asking for our contribution.
Councillor and committee chair Maggie Hathaway asked if the matter needed to go to city council for a motion to approve the $5,000, or not.
The committee voted to receive the correspondence and forward the financial request to council for consideration.
