The city’s premiere arts and culture facility will be taking care of business this fall.
The Regional District of Kootenay Boundary board of directors approved a proposal to paint the remainder of the Greater Trail Community Centre building—the higher portion of the west wall facing the alley.
The East End Services Committee had included the project as a 2012 capital item and directed that RDKB staff to explore the possibility of contracting with a qualified electrical contractor to complete the painting project.
The centre was commissioned in 2007 but was left unfinished due to the presence of high voltage power lines along the alley next to the building that made it unsafe for the painting contractor to continue.
Fairbanks Architects has approached electrical contractors that were pre-qualified by FortisBC to complete the job.
Martech of Castlegar was the only contractor to express an interest and a site meeting has been held to review the elements of the job and to request either a stipulated price or a cost plus estimated price.
The initial estimated cost for the contractor was $50,000, with Fortis costs and architect’s fees adding another $9,500 to the project, making the project $59,500.
There is $24,000 in the 2012 financial plan and approximately $36,000 in un-allocated dollars in the capital budget for a total of $60,000 in available funding.
Cash crop for council
Final adoption has been given to a bylaw bumping up the indemnity given to Trail city councillors and the mayor.
Council approved an annual indemnity bylaw recently that will see them make 2.3 per cent more as of Jan. 1.
The mayor’s seat will now receive $27,473 per year, up from $26,855. Each of the city’s six councillors will receive $13,737 per year in 2013, up from the $13,428 they are receiving this year.
Council had hired an independent committee to research what the Silver City seven made in relation to other elected municipal bodies across the province. The recommendation that came back was to hike council salaries.
The money is paid out of the annual revenue of the city.
One third of the indemnity paid is an allowance for expenses “incidental to the discharge of the duties of office.” In 2009 council approved an annual indemnity bylaw that reflected a three per cent raise at the time.
Council gets gas (tax)
The city received the first of two Community Works Fund (CWF) payments for fiscal 2012 in mid August.
An electronic transfer of $170,867 was dropped into the city’s coffers, made in accordance with the payment schedule set out in the CWF agreement.
CWF payments are made available to eligible local governments by the federal government under the federal Gas Tax revenue.
The city had not earmarked a local priority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enable cleaner air and cleaner water.