The River Road dike project has been sunk.
In answer to the alternative approval process campaign that drew 9,271 valid signatures against the project, city council voted 7-2 on Monday night to discontinue the proposal in its current form rather than take the issue to a referendum.
Just prior to that decision, council voted 6-3 against seeking an extension of the deadline for completing the work, which had to be done by February 2014 to attract funding from the federal and provincial governments.
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How council voted
Motion One
Review terms of grant and inquire about extension of completion date for River Road dike project.
Yes - Garth Frizzell, Shari Green, Cameron Stolz
No - Dave Wibur, Frank Everitt, Lyn Hall, Brian Skakun, Albert Koehler, Murry Krause
Motion Two
Discontinue the River Road Dike Project in the form that is currently proposed.
Yes - Garth Frizzell, Dave Wilbur. Lyn Hall, Shari Green, Brian Skakun, Albert Koehler, Murry Krause
No - Frank Everitt, Cameron Stolz
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Had the petition drive fallen short of attracting at least 5,351 names, council likely would have approved a bylaw to borrow nearly $3.56 million to cover the city's share of the $11.5 million project.
A further $2.5 million would have come out of the city's land reserve fund while the federal and provincial governments committed to $5.4 million in January, pending the city's contribution. The dike would have run for 3.3 kilometres between River Road and the Nechako River's south bank.
The outcome left lead campaign organizer Eric Allen in an upbeat mood.
"I think we slowed down the race to the bottom," Allen said.
Recent snowpack figures indicate flooding on the scale seen in 2007-08 is coming, but Allen noted work to raise River Road to the 200-year floodplain has already been completed and could be all that's needed.
"We don't even know how it's going to work," Allen said. "It might work just fine."
Council members repeatedly said the outcome shows the alternative approval process works, but Allen said collecting the signatures took plenty of effort over the six weeks.
Coun. Cameron Stolz warned that rejecting the proposal will not mean more money for road rehabilitation. Council has maintained a policy of taxing directly for road rehabilitation as an operational expense rather than borrowing as if it's a capital cost.
Even if $3.56 million was borrowed, it would not be enough, Stolz added. The city currently spends $3.5 million a year on paving but staff has said $7 million per year is needed to keep up due to rising costs.
"We need to increase our numbers every single year, it's not a one off," Stolz said.
Stolz dismissed calls for dredging, saying that according to an engineer's report if a strip as wide as a two-lane road was dug 10 feet deep from the Cameron Street Bridge to the confluence with the Fraser, the Nechako would actually only be lowered by only a foot.
Stolz suggested turning to the private sector to pay the city's portion of the bill and Coun. Brian Skakun said that probably should have been attempted at the beginning. If all had worked out, no money would have needed to be borrowed and no counterpetition process would have been required, Skakun said.
Coun. Albert Koehler said it's time for a cooling off period and suggested authorities should be asked for permission to dredge the river.
He also contended the last flood was more due to Alcan releasing water into the Nechako than snowpacks, which prompted Mayor Shari Green to add that's Koehler's opinion.
"You might want a caveat in your statement," Green said.
Coun. Garth Frizzell noted a private investor is paying half the city's share of the Boundary Road project, "so a precedent has been set." However, city manager Derek Bates said the terms of the federal-provincial grant would have to be revisited to see if another party could be brought onboard.
Coun. Frank Everitt said a referendum should have been held in the first place and suggested the city ask the federal and provincial governments for more time so one can be held.
"I think that governments understand delays and in my mind, we've got a delay in front of us," Everitt said.
Coun. Dave Wilbur said a referendum could be held alongside the 2014 civic election.
"We could make it an issue in the election," Wilbur said. "People would have to stand up and say what they feel about it."
He also dismissed dredging.
"We hired the very best engineers to look at that possibility," Wilbur said. "The report is on the website and the people that I've spoken to that are firmly convinced that dredging is the answer have never read the report and don't seem to have any appetite to read it.
"They don't seem to want to have their notion of what will fix it counter-pointed by some facts from somebody who knows more than I do."
But Wilbur also said the report is tough reading and the city failed to reduce the information to a level everyone can understand.
Coun. Lyn Hall noted there were nearly twice as many signatures than needed to reach the threshold but echoed Stolz's warning that the money saved won't go to road rehabilitation. He also agreed a cooling off period is in order.
Coun. Murry Krause said another flood is inevitable and mitigation measures must continue to be looked at, although a referendum is not worth pursuing.
"I think that the community spoke and now we need time to find a way to move forward," Krause said.
Mayor Shari Green said the issue was not on the November 2011 election ballot because the figures had not been confirmed until January 2012 when council was at the height of the toughest budget discussions in memory.
The issue played out during the worst road conditions the city has seen, Green added.
"If we have a flood situation in the next couple of weeks and by next summer all the roads are paved and then the grant money arrives, then we might have had a different outcome because we would have had people fresh in their minds of this kind of flood and we would've had happy road people, so it all just depends on where things land," Green said.
Green also said she'll continue to support the alternative approval process over a referendum on a case-by-case basis.
Holding a referendum would have cost the city $55,000 to $60,000 and had to be held by July 7, or within 80 days of the April 24 deadline for the alternative approval process. Servicing the debt on the $3.56 million would have cost $280,000 a year, it was also noted.
