Post Notes for the Council Meeting of November 9th 2012 Part 1

This meeting was very full after the Christmas break. For that reason post notes will be broken into two posts.

Delegations
· MLA Bennett addressed an earlier request from Council for more information regarding the Resource Roads Act. This is still in the process of being created and although the deadline of Dec. 19th for official input has passed Mr. Bennett assured residents that if they have concerns or points to make they can contact his office and make their concerns known through him. The new act is being designed to address maintenance of more than 450,000.00 kilometres of roads, (which are not part of the public highways systems), who the designated maintainers might be and what roads might be put out of service. The act is designed to focus primarily on industrial use but has obvious implications for those who use trails for recreational purposes. The new act is designed to be ready for introduction to parliament for the fall of 2012.

More information is available at:
http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/mof/nrra/

There are also a number of sites, which comment on the implications of this proposed act – just Google Resource Roads in BC.

· Kevin Patterson Environmental Services Manager, Regional District of the East Kootenay addressed Council regarding the Invasive Plant Management Program. The last Council voted to not renew their existing bylaw which involved an almost $8000.00 contribution to the program. Mr Patterson detailed the involvement of the program over the past few years with the city and asked Council to reconsider.

Councillor Pallesen agued against renewed involvement as she felt taxpayers of Cranbrook were paying “the lion’s share of the program”. Council agreed to send this issue back to administration for review especially due the fact that the figures presented at this meeting were slightly different than those originally presented.

Comment
It must be remembered that Cranbrook has the ‘lion’s share’ of residents in the area and it is that large population which is also in large part responsible for the spread of invasive weeds through backcountry use with trucks and ATVs as well as other uses.


· Clint Habart from Minute Muffler made a request to Council for a Reader Board outside his business. He was supported by a number of other businesses. This request had previously been denied, as it does not fall within the Cranbrook’s Sign Bylaw regulations. Mr Habart made the point that his current ‘special offer’ sign had only brought in two extra customers (to his knowledge) in the time it had been up.

The request was referred back to administration for a period of six weeks while bylaw changes from Creston and other information is reviewed.

Comment
Council has a very difficult and precedent setting decision to make with regard to this type of sign. It would be interesting to know whether this type of sign would bring in any more business than any other type of sign such as the sign about which Mr Habert commented. It might if it was the only one but once there are many, what difference would it make? Do residents wish to see the same type of advertising as is seen in many US and larger Canadian cities? Does Cranbrook wish to look like every other city in this way?


Maybe it is time for an in-depth and careful review of advertising signage, its effectiveness for business and overall impression of the city both positive and negative.


Readers may like to read yesterday’s post to stimulate some thought.