Who’s going to paint the lines and how much will it cost? Heres the answer.
Fort Rupert Elementary School’s Parent Advisory Council (PAC) made a request to council for help on a special project at its April 13 meeting.
PAC member Jen Russell wrote in asking for use of the District of Port Hardy’s line painter to complete a recent playground improvement project.
“The PAC has recently added a few cement structures to upgrade the outdoor intermediate play area,” noted Russell. “These include a pad for four square, tetherball areas, as well as improvements to the basketball court. In order to finalize the play areas, we are requesting the use of the line painter.”
Russell added the line painting is the final step of the project, “and we would appreciate if the work to finalize the intermediate play area could occur early this spring. The PAC fundraised over several events in our small community to upgrade and add to the play areas and would really appreciate the support of the District of Port Hardy to complete the sites.”
Mayor Dennis Dugas stated he and Coun. Fred Robertson popped over to the school to check out the lines, and then he asked Kam So, director of engineering and operations for the district, how the process of lending out the equipment would work.
“We wouldn’t just lend out the equipment, we would lend it with the user,” noted So. “They would just go and paint the lines for 2-3 hours.”
He said it would probably cost around a couple hundred bucks total.
Heather Nelson-Smith, chief administrative officer, clarified if council approved it as a grant in aid, “it would be about $258.”
Coun. Janet Dorward said she’s in support of the project, noting while it’s on school property and they have their own budget for improvements, “after school hours these properties are available to the public.”
Robertson agreed with Dorward, and then asked if they could do it without charging it as a grant in aid, wondering if they could just have district staff go and paint the lines and work with the school district on it.
Dugas was concerned about that idea, mainly because the district has to follow its own policies, otherwise other people might come and ask the district “to do the same for nothing, and unfortunately I don’t know if we can do that.”
Coun. Leightan Wishart then made a motion to use the grant in aid budget to paint the lines for the school.
“It should go through the grant in aid,” confirmed Nelson-Smith. “Anything that we do for the community, we typically do through the grant in aid budget.”
She added they don’t currently have a service contract agreement with the school district. “In lieu of that, if we do this as a one-off, then we should do it through the grant in aid. Also, it gives us a good opportunity to keep track of what we are doing for the community and make sure that we aren’t doing more than we should be doing.”
Dugas then asked council to vote on Wishart’s motion, and it was passed unanimously to use the grant in aid budget to paint the lines for the school.
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