Mayor's Report - November 2005

In May I reported that the community needed a comprehensive study to obtain reliable and current “numbers” to facilitate informed decision-making on water distribution options. I also proposed that we take advantage of Municipal Election Day and have a referendum question regarding the financial expenditure for the study. Council subsequently modified this proposal to that of a Community Opinion Question on pursuing infrastructure funding.

In July, as a parallel activity, Council broke-down the study into three parts and made application to the Province for three studies valued at $15,000 each, where the Province would contribute up to $10,000 per study. To-date, one of the applications has been approved, but it will be the end of the year before we know whether or not the remaining two applications were successful. We anticipate that at least one of the two remaining applications will be approved.

In late July, a “request for proposals” (RFP) for each of the three studies was sent to Dayton & Knight Consulting Engineers who had previously undertaken a water study for Belcarra in 1990. On November 7^th Jack Lee (Project Manager) and Walt Bayless (Project Engineer) of Dayton & Knight attended an information meeting to provide an overview of the study findings, and the synopsis report of the study that was available at the meeting was subsequently mail-dropped to the community as a whole.

On November 19^th, the Community Opinion Question:

“Are you in favour of the Village of Belcarra applying for provincial or federal infrastructure grants with the expectation of establishing and operating a municipal water system, within all but the Cosy Cove, Twin Islands and Farrer Cove areas of the municipality?”

Received the assent of the eligible electors:

Declared Number of Votes “YES” — 184 (69%)
Declared Number of Votes “NO” — 83 (31%)
Total Number of Votes Cast — 267

Unfortunately, the percentage of eligible voters casting votes was only 45%. Although significant, it begs the question: What is the opinion of the other 55% of the voters?

For me the message is clear. A majority of Belcarra residents want Council to pursue infrastructure funding when the opportunity next presents itself. However, I also believe that without substantial infrastructure funding, a referendum on debt financing a water distribution system would be a very close vote.

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