Council briefs: City borrows $450K for Vactor Truck, ferry resident rate motion passes

The City of Prince Rupert will borrow $450,000 from the Municipal Financial Authority (MFA) to purchase a Vactor Truck for the city.

A Vactor Truck, also known as a vacuum tanker, is a tank truck equipped with a pump that most commonly sucks sewage sludge and fecal sludge from underground.

In 2018 council approved replacing the aging Vactor Truck, a vital component in sewage maintenance, with one from Vimar Equipment Ltd. The city plans to repay the loan over the course of five years, with no provisions for renewal.

Ferry motion passes

The City of Prince Rupert is moving forward with its plans to request a year-round residents rate and an additional winter discounted rate for North Coast residents to the Ministry of Transportation.

The notice of motion was brought forward during October’s council meeting by councillor Barry Cunningham and was passed Monday night.

Cunningham would like to see the rates that residents of Haida Gwaii receive year round applied across all north coast communities in B.C. In addition he would like to add an extra discount for the winter months.

“North coast residents don’t have much choice if they need to travel down south during the winter and it’s a long treacherous ride on the highway and sometimes the highways are closed,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham said the volume of ridership on BC Ferries has increased since April 2018 when they reduced the fare by 15 per cent, and expects to see the same results were this to happen again.

READ MORE: Council Briefs: Cunningham puts “resident rate” for transportation on table

Bus revenues down and other council items

Bus costs for the city remain relatively the same, with only an additional $4,000 spent from this time last year, however revenues have decreased by $15,000. Corinne Bomben, Chief Financial Officer, attributed the decline in revenues to a lack of ridership despite fares remaining the same over the past several years.

The city passed a motion to recognize November as Adoption Awareness Month and a motion to support the Prince Rupert Racquet Centre in their grant application to Northern Development Initiative Trust of up to $20,000 for upgrades on the squash court.

The next council meeting is set for Nov. 25. The RCMP is expected to make an appearance with an update on activities. The appearance comes after councillor Nick Adey brought up a concern at the last council meeting that the RCMP should be communicating their activity to the public more frequently. However, Mayor Lee Brain said the meeting with council was already in the works and council has a list of community groups to go through.

READ MORE: COCULLO: Prince Rupert RCMP needs to revamp their communication procedures

READ MORE: City of Prince Rupert says “water worse than Flint” data is misrepresentative