Council approved $500,000 in spending on an electrical substation project after a recess and private discussion at Mondaynight’s meeting of council, the first of the New Year and following budget deliberations that afternoon.
Following a public consultation budget workshop on Monday afternoon, council passed a motion stating “Council determinesto grant the early budget approval of $500,000 to be funded from capital reserves for City of Grand Forks staff to proceedwith the design of the estimated 5.6 million dollar substation construction.”
The memo to council included in the agenda on the motion is brief, giving a history of electrical in Grand Forks. According tothe memo, Grand Forks is a wholesale distributor of power from FortisBC. The substation project, if approved, would allowcouncil to become a wholesale transmission customer of Fortis, at a lower rate that could lead to “substantial” savings.
The memo to council cites Nelson Hydro Rosemont Substation as a model that Grand Forks could potentially follow, shouldthe project go ahead. Council had previously approved $50,000 for a feasibility study in the 2016 capital plan.
After some discussion at council table during the evening meeting, many councillors expressed confusion over which projectthe motion was for.
“As Councillor Butler has suggested, maybe we could just receive this for information, depending on our conversation thisafternoon,” Councillor Bev Tripp said. The discussion at the afternoon budget workshop centred on the necessity of upgradingthe electrical voltage conversion system, which is in the final stages of a nine-year program. The project would be billed at$500,000 per year for the next two years. The voltage conversion project is separate from the electrical substation project, butmust be done prior to the substation project. During the budget workshop, city staff decided to pull the voltage conversionproject from the early budget approval. It will appear before council at a future date.
Grand Forks Mayor Frank Konrad asked for a recess and to see council in chambers. Following the roughly 10-minute recess,council returned and had a brief discussion on the motion. At that time, Butler raised the previous planning that had beendone on the substation project
“I think on a decision on such a large amount of money that the [previous business case] should be included here for council’sdebate. It needs to be made public so they can see why we made this decision, so I would prefer putting this off,” she said.
Following her comment, Konrad called the vote on the motion, which passed.
During question period when asked by the Gazette, Konrad said the discussion was held in chambers on purpose. “That is whywe held it in chambers, because we did not want it made public,” he said.
Regarding the approval of the funding, he said the discussion in chambers was for clarity. “We had a discussion this morningregarding the transformers and issues, and we wanted to make sure this would be correlated together so there was theassurance that this would be one … so there would be no misunderstanding on the project itself. Rather than have the debatein public …”
Council passed the motion, with Butler voting against and Councillor Colleen Ross abstaining from voting, later citingdiscomfort over voting in favour of the motion.
