PORT ALICE, B.C. – The village’s newest councillor has some big plans for the community.
Bruce Lloyd was elected in the Port Alice by-election last Saturday, and he said he’s looking forward to getting to work.
One of his major focuses in office will be improving the village’s water and sewer infrastructure.
“I’ve been walking with the Public Works foreman, and he’s shown me some of the work we need to do on water and sewage, and I’ve been in office before, about six years ago, and things have continued to deteriorate, so we’re looking at major work on our water and sewer infrastructure,” he said.
“We have serious problems with our water and sewer lines, as I think (Port) Hardy has and has had. (Port) McNeill has been addressing theirs but we’ve just been patching (damaged lines).”
In Saturday’s election, Lloyd received 103 votes. Warren Beatty came in second, with 70 votes, while Susan Mohler had 47 and Angela Yunker received 34.
He said another one of his future plans is to move the village’s boundaries, to include the Quatsino Dryland Sort, which is operated by Western Forest Products.
“Currently, the taxation authority is the (Mount Waddington) Regional District, but given our financial difficulties, that would be one good move to make that (the Sort) one of our taxpayers, because we’re the closest community to them by far, and in the case they should ever need our fire department’s assistance, we’d be the one to provide it, not the Regional District,” he explained.
“I’m thinking that’s justifiable, a boundary extension to the Quatsino Sort, which would give us a few thousand dollars more revenue anyway, and with the closure of our pulp mill and the tenuous nature of them, they are 70 per cent of our tax revenue, but each year, August 1st comes and goes and that’s the taxation deadline to pay and we cross our fingers and hope they’ll pay, so we’d like to begin to expand in any way we can.”
He said the village wants to encourage industry, and tourism in the area, but that “it’s a tough game in rural British Columbia these days”.
He said a lot of villages and hamlets across the province are “ignored by the senior governments”, and he hopes Port Alice can be successful going forward to improve its local economy.
Lloyd will be sworn into office on March 14th, 2018.
