Anxious to make a contribution

The desire of Prince Rupert residents to have more of a say in the Official Community Plan process may finally be close.

Phase one of the consultation process was by invitation only. Controversy surfaced when it was explained that the consultant who conducted the interviews on the prep work for the Official Community Plan, conducted interviews with a select group of citizens. Making for a situation that didn’t sit well with many in the community who felt left out of the initial phase of the process and wondered if the city was getting a complete picture of how its residents really felt.

With that portion of the planning now complete, things move on to phase two, which is supposed to be a more accessible process for the public which wishes to make a contribution. Details of public meetings and consultations are apparently planned for the city’s website.

MORE SET TO GET SAY ON CITY’S PLAN
By James Vassallo
The Daily News
Tuesday, April 3, 2007

The first stages of the city’s Official Community Plan (OCP) have not been open enough for some people.

So far, information has been guaranteed through invitation only focus groups and a small random telephone survey.

“My residence was one of the telephones that rang (for the Quality of Life surveys),” said Colleen Wiens, who asked city council last week to outline when the OCP process would become open to the public.

“I was not allowed to participate in the survey because my husband was employed by the city.”

“I don’t feel very happy about that.”

Others have expressed concerns that the selection process for focus groups was not representative, raising concerns the document will not reflect the community’s will.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to look at the Official Community Plan, some of us have been really looking forward to having some control over how our life is in Prince Rupert,” said Peggy Davenport, who added for her part she was happy to have taken part in the focus groups.

“Appreciating the fact that an awful lot is not in our control because of what’s going on with the port and there’s a lot of big guys out there with big money who have a lot of power, within our own community, we still need to have some control.

“We appreciate our parks, we appreciate our clean environment, we appreciated the ability to walk when we go into town and do our shopping, to be able to live without a car – these kind of things.”

City Administrator Gord Howie explained that the consultant hired to perform the Quality of Life survey determined employees, and clearly those related to employers, would not be included in the initial fact collecting process.

However, the next step - a series of public meetings that will soon be listed on the city’s revamped website – will be open to everyone.

“The data gathering that’s been done to date wasn’t really the planning part of it, it was the part that says who is Prince Rupert, what do they value and what needs to be done right,” said Mayor Herb Pond.

“The planning part is the part that now comes, and it becomes a much more public process that says where are we going to have parks, and how many of them are we going to have,” he said.

”It’s not like this is raw land with no plan, we already know the downtown core is the downtown core, the waterfront is the waterfront, we know which areas are currently parks, so we can work with those.