City Council makes quick work of approval for new Taxi Bylaw amendment

A few tweaks of the city's bylaw governing vehicles for hire will soon be
in place after City Council's third reading of amendments on Monday

For the most part, Prince Rupert City Council spent more time waiting for Councillor Gurvinder Randhawa to excuse himself from the discussion, than they did in actual discussion related to a new Vehicle for Hire Bylaw Amendment.

Mr. Randhawa, who is an owner/operator with Skeena Taxi, did not take part in the Bylaw amendment process owing to a potential conflict of interest.

As we noted on the blog last month, the city began its review of the Vehicle for Hire Bylaw Changes with the introduction of the proposed changes on June 11th, along with a Report from staff to outline the impact of the proposed changes.

City staff followed up on the process by way of a public notice seeking public feedback, though the nature of the city's notification program didn't exactly provide for the widest attention to the call for public comment, with but a couple of public notices in the back pages of the weekly newspaper.

The proposed change will make for a two year permit process as opposed to the current yearly requirement of vehicle for hire operators.

The main focus of the changes are to bring Prince Rupert into line with most of the communities in the province which have moved to a two year term, as well as to provide for cost savings for the recipients of the permits and to free up Administration staff time at the local detachment.

As for their deliberations on the topic of Monday, Council members provided for no further discussion on the proposed changes, giving third reading to the bylaw amendment.

During the course of Monday's short overview of the topic, neither the Mayor or city staff offered up any background as to whether any members of the public had provided for comments or concerns related to the city's taxi services and the changes the city is set to put forward with the bylaw amendment.

Council's quick work on the bylaw can be reviewed from the City's video archive starting at the nineteen minute mark.



For further items of note from Monday's Council session see our Council Timeline feature and Archive of stories from Monday's session.

A wider overview of Council Discussion topics can be found from our Council Discussion page.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review