The final collision on the site of the Greenwood demolition derby was delivered on Tuesday night when Councillor Darla Ashton brought up the issue.
“Can we get that cleaned up?” she asked. “I want to make it clear to the public that council never ever tried to discourage the demolition derby. The point of the matter really was cleaning up the site—because it was a residential area.
“Our intention was to work with the committee and find a better site,” said Ashton. “But all of that has failed with repeated attempts and I am just wondering if we can move forward with cleaning up that site once and for all.”
“It makes us hypocrites— we are sending out letters for people to clean up their property and we are not even cleaning up our own property.”
A motion was made to have the demolition derby site cleaned up and graded. No one spoke against it and it was passed.
Mayor Nipper Kettle said the job would be turned over to the city works crew to handle when they have time to get to it.
“We have been trying to reach the derby people since early this year,” said Kettle. “We have asked them to come to council. They have been invited—in that discussion we wanted to talk about working with them to find a different place where they could have the event. But nobody has come forward.
“Members of our community are getting really frustrated with that – as are council. We are still willing to work with the derby crew if they come to try to help them look for a new location. We are not talking about not wanting to have a derby— that is not the case and never, ever was the case.”
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Wendy McCulloch, general manager for Community Futures Boundary, came to present a partnership proposal to the city that would bring a free WIFI hotspot to the municipality.
This comes on the heels of a similar project that was undertaken by the City of Grand Forks, Grand Forks Credit Union, School District 51, Community Futures Boundary (CFB) and Grand Forks Rotary Club.
There they currently have six access points that cover the campground, City Park, as well as a section of the downtown core. The system went live in August of this year.
“CFB has decided they would like to see free wireless in the West Boundary— Greenwood, Midway and Rock Creek,” McCulloch said.
She offered to have CFB pay for the hardware if the city would pick up the installation and maintenance costs—estimated at between $500 and $1,000 per year.
She said that Grand Forks has found that there is substantial traffic that stays longer in the downtown core since the WIFI network went in.
She said that Brian Junnila of the Peachland WIFI Rotary Club would be willing to provide technical advice in getting it running, but the access point website would have to contain the Rotary logo.
She said Junnila had suggested the area of the Greenwood museum as the location for the hotspot. McCulloch said that the money is set aside for the hardware but it must be spent by March 31, 2014.
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Administrator Robin Dalziel reported on a meeting he had held with CUPE union staff on Oct. 9 when the city’s desire to contract out small, unique projects had been discussed. “They didn’t have any difficulty with that but wanted their rep to be notified when this is done,” Dalziel said.
“Just to clarify—these are small projects—they are not meant to replace anybody’s working job—simply things that are needed to be done around the city.”
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Council voted down a motion that was brought forward from the September 9 meeting that would have limited the size of real estate signs on commercial properties to 10 inches square. Mayor Kettle was the lone vote in favour.
A subsequent motion by Kettle to limit commercial properties on the highway corridor to only one for sale real estate sign also failed – again with Kettle as the lone supporter.
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Ashton reported the ballpark committee is ready to draft a bid package for the construction of the concession building. “If anyone on council wishes to attend and help out with that process, that would be great,” she said, adding that the next meeting of the ballpark committee is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 22 at 5:30.
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Councillor Coleen Lang reported she had attended the regular monthly meeting of the Greenwood Fire Department and that fire chief Roy Terashita would be discussing the operational guidelines as recommended by the 2011 fire safety audit with the city administrator.