Briefly from Parksville city council’s Dec. 16 meeting:
• Without discussion Parksville council unanimously supported a request from Coun. Carrie Powell-Davidson to send a letter to the Union of B.C. Municipalities to “continue to put pressure on the province to update or replace the emergency notification system,” she said. The request was based on word that, despite a UBCM resolution, the province will not change the system, which Powell-Davidson said, according to emergency planners “simply isn’t adequate or working… we can’t let this one go.”
• Parksville city council agreed to lease 7.4 sq.m (80 sq.ft.) in the Parksville Civic and Technology Centre to the provincial government as a secure computer server space for $1,680 per year. The space is an unused hallway connecting office space beside the city administration department to the atrium and the rent works out to a bit more than the current per square foot average in the building.
• The property containing the Shelly Centre hall was officially designated as the city’s newest park with final adoption of a bylaw that came from a request from the Pioneer Crescent Neighbourhood Residents Association. In a Nov. 18 presentation to council an association representative asked for the formal protection for what many people — including several councillors — thought was already a park.
• A proposal to convert two large, connected lots at 780 Stanhope Road and 577 Pym Street into 15 fee-simple lots passed the final council hurdle with a vote (opposed only by Coun. Bill Neufeld) to amend the map to the new SLR-1 or small lot residential.
