I N S I D E : Summer staycation - rails and roads. Page 8
Journal ASHCROFT t CACHE CREEK
Volume 120 No 27 PM # 400121123
The
Thursday, July 2, 2015
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Stage Road rebuild gets approval, funds
SCHOOL DAYS: At the recent Open House at Ashcroft Elementary School, former teacher Esther Lang (l, who taught at AES for more than 34 years), Susan Schalles (teacher at AES, and Principal there since 2013), and MLA Jackie Tegart (who was an Ashcroft School Board Trustee for 17 years) tried out some old school desks for size. The school closed its doors to students for the last time on June 25. Photo by Christopher Roden
Local election campaign spending limits endorsed As part of a set of electoral reforms which included extending local election terms to four years, an all-party Special Committee on Local Elections Expense Limits recently released its unanimous report on local elections campaign spending limits. In jurisdictions with a population of less than 10,000, the committee recommends expense limits of $10,000 for mayoral candidates and $5,000 for all other candidates including councillor, school trustee, electoral area directors, and Islands Trust representatives. In jurisdictions with a population 10,000 or more, the committee recommends a per capita formula to reflect that the size of the community significantly affects a candidate’s campaign
costs. In these communities, mayoral candidates would be limited to $1 per capita for the first 15,000 people, eventually dropping to only 15 cents per capita for communities with a population greater than 200,000. The committee recommends that the spending limits apply to candidates beginning January 1 in the calendar year of local elections. It also recommends that third-party party advertisers be limited to 5% of what the mayoral candidate in a given jurisdiction is allowed to spend. “We heard from the public that running for local government must be accessible and affordable. Our recommendations allow reasonable spending, while promoting fair and accessible lo-
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cal elections,” said committee chair Jackie Tegart, MLA for Fraser-Nicola. “The committee unanimously agreed to recommend flexible expense limits which recognize the different needs of smaller and larger communities as well as the differences between mayoral candidates and candidates for other locally elected offices,” added deputy chair Selina Robinson. Several other provinces already have spending limits for some or all parts of local elections in place. The B.C. proposal has not yet gone before the legislature, but all members of the Special Committee, both Liberal and NDP, were unanimous in their endorsement of the proposed spending limits.
Barbara Roden
Cache Creek Council has taken the first steps toward the repair of the Village’s battered infrastructure. At a Special Meeting held on June 29, Council voted unanimously to approve the appointment of Stantec Consulting Ltd. as contractors to engage Dawson Construction to rebuild Stage Road. Two proposals were received for the extensive work that will need to be carried out: one from Stantec/Dawson, the other from McElhanney Consulting Services. Stantec/Dawson’s projected total cost for the work required was $372,100, while McElhanney’s was $864,000. Mayor John Ranta said that it was in the Village’s best financial interest to approve the Stantec/Dawson bid. Councillor David Dubois asked if Council could see bids in more specific detail in future. “When I see large discrepancies in bids I wonder if something has been missed or overlooked that ends up costing the Village more after the fact,” he said, citing the surfacing of the new Cache Creek playground last year. Mayor Ranta pointed out that none of the applications for response (such as for debris removal) have come to Council in the wake of May’s flooding. He also said that one of the possible reasons for the Stantec/Dawson bid being considerably lower was due to the fact that Stantec engineered, and Dawson built, the original road. He added that whereas McElhanney indicated the job would take 24 weeks, Stantec/ Dawson projected that the work would be complete in 24 work days from the approval of the contract. No work can begin on the rebuilding of Stage Road until Fortis Gas has relocated the exposed natural gas main line under the road. That work is scheduled to begin on July 6 and take three days. The Village submitted an Expenditure Authorization Form to Emergency Management BC (EMBC) on June 24, asking for 100% funding of the Stantec/Dawson proposal. EMBC responded with a 100% response funding commitment of $229,050, with a not to exceed figure of $289,050. This would restore Stage Road to an “essential access” only state, meaning it would be two lanes of compacted gravel. The remaining amount of $83,050 – which includes such items as asphalt, curb backfill, a See ASPHALT on p. 6
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