Mondays FPCOW meeting has come and gone. Not on the agenda, but reported was a clarification of the status of a new agreement with Millennium/Suro about deal rights on the hotel development and access to the Maffeo-Sutton lands. It was revealed that, contrary to what seems to have previously been understood by many, including some Councillors, that the only deal existing at the moment is to develop a possible one year extension. If the previously outlined terms of reference are put into a final agreement, it will be brought forward to Council with a recommendation that the agreement with Millennium, as modified to allow for the possibility of other developers, be extended for another year.
Frankly I can't understand what this accomplishes. If we simply terminated the agreement for non performance as we have every right to do, we would have a call on some $3.2 million in fees paid to Millennium/Suro and have just as much, and perhaps more, access to alternative developers as we would have under this new agreement. What do taxpayers have to gain by this extension?
Council's direction to staff about the 2009 Budget and Property Tax Bylaw was laid over to the next Council meeting. This should allow a much broader audience to see their Council in action on the budget as Council meetings are televised. Don't miss it.
The matters of the BIAs (Business Improvement Areas) and the DNPS (Downtown Nanaimo Partnership Society) were the subject of three petitioners before Council who expressed concern about the operation of the DNPS and recommended that the ambiguous results of the Council Initiative (negative option) be set aside. One speaker also pointed out the possibility of perceived conflict of interest which was presented by the fact that three Councillors sit on the DNPS Board, thus both asking for and then voting for funding from the city and from taxpayers. Council, after some discussion, voted to procede with the BIA bylaws and they will procede to the next Council meeting. Given the results and the acrimony, it would perhaps have been wise for Council to follow staff's original recommendation in this matter which was for $175,000 from taxpayers and a straight up democratic vote on the matter.
The meeting also voted to award a contract for $2 million for a fixed price contract to install a heat pump system and a solar hot water heating system at the Conference Centre.
The report on Legislative Services which was to have been presented by Mr. Howat was laid over to the next FPCOW meeting in two weeks.
