At City Council, there is No feud, like an old feud!

Mayor Lee Brain offering some 
editorial advice for 
the city's weekly paper

The waning moments of Monday's City Council meeting provided for some interesting theatre for the evening, as Mayor Lee Brain announced the city's success in the field of grant applications, outlining some notes related to the recent Federal/Provincial funding announcement on water infrastructure.

We made note of that announcement on Monday morning, highlighting the background to the joint funding program between the federal and provincial government that delivered over 7 million dollars for the city to be used on the second phase of the Shawatlan Dam project.

Yesterday we outlined that as part of of its required contribution to the three party funding formula, the City will be using the Legacy Fund to provide the final $1.4 million required to see the project move forward

However once the good financial news had been shared, the Mayor apparently wasn't content with just relaying the city's success when it comes to the task of filing application papers in a timely fashion.

He also it seems had decided that Monday night was the time to take the weekly newspaper to task once again, calling attention to how they had covered City Council in the past.

The Mayor turned Council's attention, as well those as residents in the public gallery and anyone viewing at home, to some news coverage from 2016 that it appears still rankles him.

Reminding everyone of a pair of items that the Northern View had published last year, which had suggested that the city was a little tardy on catching some of the shared funding opportunities that were available at that time.

As part of his rebuke of the paper delivered to the reporter in attendance at council for the night, Mayor Brain suggested that the paper may wish to provide a retraction.

"So we thought we would mention that tonight, and perhaps Mr. Campbell, you could have Mr. Hamilton offer a retraction in the paper, from the front page advertising that he did last time when he said that we had missed our opportunity. Clearly, we did not miss the opportunity and we in fact got the finances awarded to us and perhaps you could send that message back to Mr. Hamilton" 

For those that don't have memories (or carry their grudges) quite as long as the Mayor, the two items of note from that time can be reviewed below.

October 19 -- City misses out on major water funding spree
October 18 -- In Our Opinion: Where was Rupert?

You can review the Mayor's commentary on both the funding announcement and that of his taking the paper to task starting at the 33 minute mark of the Video presentation from Monday's Council session.




A complete look at Monday's Council session can be found on our Council Timeline feature.

While more items of interest related to Prince Rupert City Council can be found on our Council Discussion page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review