Most of the city business is decided during the governance meeting which precedes regular Trail council meetings.
This week Trail council members heard from Morag Carter, executive director from the Skills Centre, regarding next steps for the Lower Columbia Poverty Reduction Plan.
Carter asked city officials to adopt the plan, called “Thriving For All,” and to consider becoming the fiscal agent and sponsoring organization for “Stream 2” funding. Doing so would make the municipality responsible for reporting on the grant.
Mayor Lisa Pasin says council did adopt the plan, but deferred the second request until further information is provided.
Council also addressed a number of recreational directives reported on by department head Trisha Davison.
First, the panel agreed to use a “Low Income Measure” as the assessment tool to qualify an individual or family for the city’s recreation leisure access program. Effective Jan. 1, this new measure will allow city staff to look at not only the income level of the applicant, but to also factor in basic living costs of today.
“Using the ‘best’ metric to measure low income and need is seen to be important,” noted the city’s David Perehudoff. “It should be recognized that the change will likely result in more people qualifying, but as the director (Davison) indicates, the access assistance likely results in a direct revenue gain to the city as those who were shutout from using the facility are now able as part of paying a subsidized rate.”
Council also agreed for Davison to move ahead with a project enquiry to Columbia Basin Trust regarding the re-build of Butler Park tennis and pickleball courts. Davison was given the green-light to apply for a community development grant if the Trust considers the project eligible for the program.
Another item council ticked off the list was to approve the sale of surplus equipment and material to the highest bidders. The city held an auction from Nov. 7 to Nov. 18 as a way to dispose of items deemed to be at the end of useful life and/or surplus in nature, while maximizing value recovery for the goods.
A number of low value auction items, such as garbage cans and old tool boxes, did not attract bids. The city says these leftovers will be disposed of through conventional means such as recycling or disposal at the landfill.