Grand Forks City Councillors are addressing our communities concerns. Four resolutions were given the go-ahead at Tuesday’s regular council meeting, and are set to be presented at the Association of Kootenay & Boundary Local Governments convention in April. This as the deadline to submit is March 1st. Councillor Christine Thompson’s resolution encourages funding for more detox and rehabilitation centres across the Province, especially for rural and remote communities.
She says it’s an issue in our community as well as in others:
“I think it’s something that needs to be dealt with, I think there has to be assistance for those that want to recover, and my understanding from the professionals is that a 3 month wait after having come down for detoxification rehabilitation is far too long.”
She adds council wants to make the help that people need more available. Councillor Chris Moslin’s resolution addresses BC Housing’s consultation process.
He says the previous council was informed about a project after BC Housing purchased the land and made a design:
“This councillor, and the new council, I want BC Housing to know that we’re ready to play. We do want to be partners, we have a huge housing problem to solve, we’ll get a lot further together. That’s what the intent of that motion is, I kind of feel that a lot of communities might be surprised….”
The two other resolutions concern business owners on the East side of Grand Forks. The goal is to find alternative ways to support businesses that were excluded from a grant that would help fund recovery.
Mayor Brian Taylor says one requests that the Emergency Program Act and Disaster Financial Assistance better addresses rural BC:
“Under the Disaster Financial Assistance many of these small business were penalized or not allowed at all to have any advantage because they had multiple sources of income, and that’s so typical of small business so it needs to be changed and I support this motion.”
The other resolution focuses on insurance policies as many were unable to get coverage. It requests a review of practices, and to identify ways of better serving property owners and small businesses affected by disaster. This year AKBLG is being held in Castlegar from April 26th to 28th.