Volunteers will be going door-to-door looking for signatures for a petition against the proposed River Road dike project.
On Thursday approximately 60 opponents of the project gathered to organize the push to gather as many signatures as possible before the April 24 deadline, organizer Eric Allen said.
"We're going to hit the streets and do as much door-to-door as possible," Allen said. "Hopefully by April 23, 24 we'll have the number. We don't know how many people are signing forms and dropping them off at City Hall. We have to guess, but I'd guesstimate we're halfway there, so we really have to push to get the rest."
In February, city council approved an alternative approval process to get voter consent for a bylaw to borrow $3.56 million for the dike project. Under the alternative approval process, registered voters have until 5 p.m. on April 24 to sign a petition against the bylaw.
If 5,351 voters - 10 per cent of the total number of voters -sign the petition, then city council cannot approve the loan bylaw without going to a referendum.
The proposed 3.3 kilometre, $11.5 million dike would run the length of River Road from the Cameron Street Bridge to the CN Rail bridge, according to city staff reports. Construction of the dike was identified as a top priority project in the city's flood mitigation strategy, developed following the 2007-08 ice jam and flood on the Nechako River.
Allen said he doesn't believe the record snowpack conditions in the upper Fraser River and Nechako River basins, which have resulted in increased risk of flooding this spring, will impact voters' minds about signing the petition.
On Jan. 24 the provincial and federal governments announced $5.4 million in funding for the project. A further $2.5 million is expected to come from the city's Land Development Reserve fund.
City staff project the payments on the $3.56 million debt would total nearly $280,000 per year for 20 years, starting in 2014. The total interest cost to the city is estimated at $2 million over 20 years.
"People are against any more taxes," Allen said. "It seems everybody has got that message but governments."
