PORT ALICE — A written request for council support for lethal culling of Canada Geese at the Port Alice Health Centre's helipad met with approval from Port Alice council during its regular meeting Mar. 23. In order to ensure the helipad remains safe for helicopters to land, Dr. Ian Mackenzie asked council to approve his plan to use a 12-gauge shotgun to cull between one and five geese per month in order to discourage the geese from feeding in the area. Mackenzie says this is the only method the geese do not learn to ignore over time.
Council voted to give its support to the project, provided Vancouver Island Health Authority also signs off on the proposal.
Community forest
Mayor Gail Neely announced the Community Forest Agreement has passed another milestone with approval on the latest batch of paperwork. Once they sign, witness and return the forms, the three communities of Port Alice, Port Hardy and Port McNeill will be a legal entity and be one step closer to partnering on management of three community forests on the North Island.
Webpage translation
Director of Operations Keir Gervais asked for council's direction regarding the opportunity to include the cost of translations of a portion of the Village's website into eight or ten foreign languages as part of its Rural Tourism Action Grant proposal. The portion of the website that would be translated would be an overview page describing the village and its amenities. Gervais said the translation would increase the cost of the webpage reconstruction by $2,000 to $2,500, thereby increasing the total cost of the project to beween $4,000 and $5,000. The limit on the matching funds grant is $2,500 and Gervais told council he would like to apply for the full $2,500.
His letter to staff says languages being considered for the translation project include: Hong Kong Cantonese, Taiwan Mandarin, PRC Mandarin, French, German, Deutsch, Spanish, Japanese, Italian and Portuguese.
Bids accepted
Council accepted a bid of $6,100 for its old Ford dump truck and snow plow from Kerpoint Ltd. It also accepted a bid of $950 per month from Heather Murray to look after Village flowers Apr. 1 to Oct. 31, 2011. A bid of $375/mo. to provide janitorial services for the municipal building and Info/heritage from Dorothy Noseworthy was also accepted.
Lastly, council agreed to award a three-day contract, not to exceed $5,000, for clearing and chipping wood waste along the Mill road to Davey Tree. Council asked Gervais to look for alternatives to tying up two Village maintenance staff with traffic control for three days while the wood waste chipping project is in progress.