by Eva van Loon

When 75 persons turn up, mostly via moccasin telegraph, at a church-basement meeting to discuss a nefarious proposal by City Council to re-vamp the city’s sewage-treatment plant, you know, as one participant said, “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.”
To the newcomer, it seems a bit odd. Isn’t it a good thing to upgrade the local sewage-treatment plant? Especially since the population has been rising nicely and presumably every newcomer feels the call of nature daily?

Two issues were well aired at this meeting, ably run by Patricia Aldworth. One: the impact of a sewage-treatment plant on home values, hereinafter called the NIMBY Poo issue (Not In My Back Yard). Two: the lack of public participation in the plan, hereby dubbed the Poo Gate issue.

Unlike the Town Centre Hotel meetings about the Yrainucep and LNG-on-Texada proposals, the sewage meeting was a purely local issue. It was not about fighting off yet another brilliant project from outside to abuse PR’s spectacular resources to provide our beleaguered city with McJobs. Unlike those meetings, the subtext of this one did not require us to consider whether Powell River is to be a community or a commodity.
This meeting was about, well, about our own sh**. Not BS but HS. The smelly human stuff. The stuff every single human community on earth should be thinking seriously about handling in the greenest possible manner, starting yesterday.

Yet the smell of the meeting, pardon the expression, was similar. A complaint that kept bubbling to the surface, like methane gas, was poor communication by, with, and about City Council. Once again, people did not know enough to be at a point where decisions can be made, and they weren’t happy about it.

Does this Council fail to communicate effectively? For neo-PRites, it’s hard to tell and wise to refrain from opinion. But even to newcomers, something in the area of municipal communication is obviously not working well.

After a century of being a company town, perhaps Powell River needs new communication styles as much as we need fresh bases for business, good jobs to fill, and educational opportunity.