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| The opening of Pembina's LPG Terminal at Watson Island served as a popular theme at Monday's City Council session (photo from PREDC FB page) |
Whether it was from those participating as contributors at the Public Hearing on the Official Community plan earlier in the evening, or the members of Council looking back at the path they took to development of Watson Island, the commentary was that of a mission accomplished at Monday's regular council session.
During the Public hearing process, Ken Shaw made note of the arrival of the first vessel at Pembina's Watson Island dock and congratulated the Council members for their work over the last seven years towards the return to business for Watson Island.\
The City Council membership also made a few mentions of the progress found at Watson Island, recounting their efforts for the public a number of times during the review of the Public hearing process.
"I think everybody should be proud, I mean Prince Rupert's moving forward. You know, just this morning we all attended the virtual ceremony for Watson Island opening. You know, we did that as a Council; you know we moved that whole Island forward. You know we've done some incredible things for this community and here we are now doing more of the work, putting all the groundwork in, legwork to really spear this community forward and I think we should be proud of that" -- Mayor Lee Brain
The largest focus for the topic however came at the end of the evening, when a number of the Council members spoke to the grand opening of earlier in the day and what they feel it signifies for the community.
"Big day today and again I would like to congratulate Pembina and their team for their grand opening and feel very proud to be part ofplaying a role in this incredible project and looking forward to many years of safe operational safety" -- Councillor Gurvinder Randhawa
Councillor Niesh recounted part of how he spent part of his day on Friday watching from Port Edward as the first vessel arrived at the Watson Island dock, noting how it charts the future for the Island
"It's a monumental day and hopefully it's just the beginning for us for what's going to happen for us on Watson Island, they're just a portion of the Island and I look forward to more things happening out there and building that tax base even more for us. More revenue for our community can make us get at some of these infrastructure problems even faster" -- Councillor Wade Niesh
"I just wanted to add onto the congratulations to Pembina, I didn't actually realize until this very moment that it is kind of cool, to use Council Adey's term, kind of a cool watershed moment that the same day that they do their virtual ribbon cutting is the same day that we're adopting an official community plan.
But we've all heard that saying that money talks and BS walks, so all I wanted to add on the Watson Island file was how incredibly ... heartening it is to think about how far that particular site has come. Looking back just a few years it's costing taxpayers 90,000 dollars a month; fast forward to today and it's set to make us millions of dollars every year in tax and lease revenues for decades to come.
So I just cannot congratulate the hard work of staff enough for getting us to this point. There was a lot of doubters at the time that thought it was just one more proposal, one more shovel that wasn't going to hit the ground, one more project that was going to stay on the shelf.
And I think the attitude in town is starting to change, I think people are realizing that something, something really exciting is happening in town. It's no longer just false promises, you know broken hopes and old patterns of the past. There's something, really, a really exciting new chapter turning in Prince Rupert and there's not really a more exciting time to live here in my opinion -- Councillor Blair Mirau
The full review of their commentary can be found from the Video Archive starting at the two hour thirteen minute mark.
Last Friday the Mayor made note of the moment through his Social media stream setting the tone for the celebrations to come this week.
With the Terminal now open and Council celebrating the first vessel arrival, it may be a timely moment for Council to deliver a public presentation on the past path towards the redevelopment of Watson Island, as well as a look at the future for the industrial site and the progress towards attracting other tenants.
As part of any information session, Council might want to show off some form of a financial review for the public to examine; one that provides some detail towards the money that was spent towards the rebirth and the prospects for the future.
That would offer a glimpse for the public as to how the City used their Legacy Corporation winfall to chart the course of that remediation, and how much of that fund was put towards the project to date.
To this point, Pembina remains as the only tenant that City Council has announced for the facility, while the majority of the Mayor's talking points have been delivered through his Social media portal.
You can review some of the history to the Council's engagement towards repurposing the old pulp mill site from our archive page here.
More from Monday's City Council session can be explored through our Council Timeline Feature.
A wider overview of past council themes is available from our Council Discussion archive.
Cross posted from the North Coast Review.
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