Friday, October 01, 2010

Rupertites returned to BC ferries boards


The new class of 2010 has been announced at BC Ferries and when the announcements were complete, three high profile Rupertites continued to hold a place on the upper decks of management at the Ferry corporation.

BC Ferries has restructured its Management Boards in order to meet the new requirements of the Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act.

The nine member BC Ferry Authority Board will feature two Rupertites as Dan Miller and Stephen Smith continue on with their duties with BC Ferries. Three other members were named to positions on the board, leaving four spots yet to be filled and as the BC Ferries press release outlines the Corporation is currently seeking out qualified applicants for those remaining spots, positions which should be filled after the Boards first session in the fall.

Over in the boardroom of the BC Ferry Service Board, Prince Rupert's Maureen Macarenko will offer up guidance along with the seven other members of the Service Board.

Best as they could the Vancouver Province examined the changes and the redefined nature of the BC Ferries boards,  seemingly complicated creations with overlapping responsibilities and no shortage of issues to contemplate in the year to come.

Chris Montgomery's article offers up a number of questions of the Ferry Service as they face the choppy waters of transportation in the province moving forward towards the need for major payments to come for the new class of ferries and stagnant passenger loads.

Chairman David Hahn is scheduled to address the UBCM convention in Whistler today along with Federal Transportation Minister Stockwell Day, where some form of an announcement is anticipated to be made.

While the new board makes note of his comments and gets down to its work, over on the operations side of the business it seems that management has already been proactive in its approach to the main thrust of the new requirements which will make the corporation subject to freedom of information requests.

According to the Vancouver Sun the new requirements have the Ferry Service cautioning its staff to be cautious of what they write in any correspondences. In the article North Coast MLA and Ferries critic Gary Coons offered up his thoughts on the Ferry Service's new approach to the legislation and their warnings to staff to be cautious of what they write.

Depending on how all of that plays out in the future, the new board may find that the spotlight of public interest in Ferry Service developments will shine on their efforts as well as those managing and operating the fleet.


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