Mike Sudnik for City Council 2022

Regular Meeting of City Council & Committee of the Whole - November 23, 2020 View the full agenda here: https://dawsoncreek.civicweb.net/filepro/documents/99654

A bit of an update from last council meeting - The airport is a major financial loss approx $850,000 yearly for primarily an air ambulance service. - BC Transit will be bringing larger buses to hopefully avoid passenger pass-ups at bus stops. They can only run at 2/3 capacity. Nobody should be left on the side of the road in the cold, it's a temporary solution.... - Kin Arena was directed to open with a 4-3 vote. Interesting conversation and perspectives regarding arena use and what benefits a community. - Road improvements costing approx $20 million dollars resulting in significant tax increases. These road repairs can only be accomplished through borrowing funds. - Early first draft of 2021 budget coming during the next council meeting Nov 23rd, everyone should tune in. Definitely some challenging decisions to be made for the future. I encourage everyone to watch the live council meetings and have a listen to whats going on in our city. The last council meeting was over three hours and this is just a tiny bit of whats happening.

The Province of BC has approx $425million dollars available to provide municipalities through the " Covid 19 safe restart grants for local governments". Its available for eligible municipality costs such as: - Emergency response costs - Fire and Police Services - Revenue shortfalls... - Facility reopening and operating costs Dawson Creek city council has the report for installing ice in and operating either the Kin Arena or Encana Centre for the remainder of the 2020/21 season. There's plenty of variables to consider in that decision, one of course being cost. Kin Arena costs for the remainder of the 2020/21 season are estimated at $280,000 with ice installed by the end of November. Encana costs for the remainder of the 2020/21 season are estimated at $165,000 with ice possibly installed for use in January 2021. If that grant, which is application based, has been applied for, operating costs shouldn't be an issue. The decision of ice or no ice will be made at Mondays council meeting that you can watch and listen to live on the cities Facebook page. Fun fact, the city of Fort Saint John applied and received a whopping $3,778,000.

This week the school district has temporarily paused the use of its gyms by non-school groups so they can ensure the protocols are in line with the ministry of educations protocols on outside groups using the spaces. Short term pause? Hopefully Long term pause? Potentially... Future use consistency? Unpredictable Opportunity for the city? Perhaps it's time to consider repurposing some spaces. For example, Mercer Hall. It's a big industrial space with high ceilings better suited for a gym facility than a small event space. Remember this building was sold as a community multiplex not just an event centre. Squash courts, badminton courts, basketball, volleyball anyone? A gymnasium space could be used by various groups and clubs generating revenue more consistently as opposed to the handful of times an event has been held there. There is that other centrally located event space in town, Unchagah Hall. Maybe its time to repurpose and rename Mercer Hall to Mercer courts and take advantage of Unchagah Hall more? A benefit for the school district, a benefit for the user groups, a benefit for city revenue and one more year round amenity for Dawson Creek?

Council, on Nov9th, will reconsider putting ice in either the Kin Arena or Encana. Council has looked at a clear-span bridge to replace the culverts on 102ave for flood mitigation, approx $4million. Westjet again postponed its flight service to the Dawson Creek airport until at least Jan 2021.... Sealand flight is considering moving a flight school base here in 2021, no decision made though. The city won an award for using an artificial intelligence app to locate 450 potholes on city streets. The walking track at Encana opens on Nov2nd!! Some attendance stats from 2019 Oct = 1151 Nov = 1346 Dec = 238 Jan = 2884 Feb = 2570 Mar = 2252 The city has a new fire chief, Marcel Capelle. Congratulations