It wasn’t unanimous but the North Cariboo Joint Planning Committee has decided to reimburse the Bouchie Lake Recreation Commission to repair a damaged sewer pipe and drainage issue at the hall.
Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson was one of two people opposed.
He feels it establishes a “horrible precedence…
“I think about our own budget, we would have to move money around in order to deal with exigent circumstances within existing budgets. We wouldn’t go to the province to to our taxpayers and say by the way we now want you to pay this bill in addition to the operating funds that we gave you to handle things like this.”
Jerry Bruce, the Cariboo Regional District Director for Area B, was among those who didn’t see it that way…
“That event you are talking about was an emergency in the Bouchie Lake area. There was a wedding going on, there is a huge storm, water is pouring down on the people who are renting the facility and these people, who are volunteers, looked at it and said can we wait for another meeting ?”
Bruce says they felt that it couldn’t wait and decided to use the money in their operating budget to fix it and then try to get it back later.
He says they also felt that it was a capital expense.
The vote was 6-2 in favour of giving the group the money.
City Councillor Ron Paull wanted to meet them halfway and give them half of the nearly 6 thousand dollars back.