Final Counter Petition Numbers
11,736 submitted to City Hall by the January 4th, 4:30pm deadline. 1,864 determined to be invalid, mostly due to the signature address being outside of the City of Victoria. The verified count include forms collected by johnsonstreetbridge.org volunteers, and petitions submitted to Victoria City Hall.
Total: 9872 Valid Elector Response Forms
The petition passed the requirement of 6343, or 10% of the electors, by 3529 signatures. This equates to 15.4% of the potential electors, and well over half the turnout in the 2008 municipal election (27%)
Special Council Meeting on the Johnson Street Bridge
Special Council Meeting
Rob Woodland, manager of Legislative Services for the City of Victoria, presented a report to Council on the final petition count, and the details on a referendum should they choose to go ahead with the $42 million borrowing bylaw – No. 09-057. A referendum must be held by March 20th 2010, and he indicated a possible date of March 6th. Mr Woodland also noted that should council choose to introduce another borrowing bylaw, for either replacement or refurbishment, it will require the approval of the Provincial Inspector of Municipalities and the assent of the electors through a referendum. There is no possibility of using an alternative approval process to gain elector approval again on the same project. The estimated cost for a referendum is $140 000.
Council then received a motion from Councillor Pam Madoff to set aside the current borrowing bylaw and go to a referendum at a future date. Each councillor had time to speak and express their views on the way forward. Most were still certain their previous choice to replace the Blue Bridge was the best option, but realized that placing that directly before the electors without further detailed information would likely result in a defeat. Councillor Geoff Young noted preliminary applications to the CRD, the Province and Federal funding bodies should be prepared by staff for a refurbishment option, and that staff should provide more details on the repair options.
Towards the end of the meeting there was some confusion as to exact the wording of the motion (which is still not entirely clear), however the motion includes: Council rescinds the current borrowing bylaw; a referendum will be held on the future of the Johnson Street Bridge with assistance from staff for timelines; that staff consult experts and residents as to what options for the bridge should be explored and potential costs; and that staff are directed to explore costs and a timelines for a refurbishment of the bridge. A complete text of the motion will be available when council approves the minutes.
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Great post Mat! The photo links may be a bit off though. The links don’t go past the thumbnails…
Congratulations and thank you.
Good work by all, and so many to be congratulated.
By signs today there will be more yet to come . . .
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Yule Heibel, Mat Wright. Mat Wright said: Petition forces Victoria Council Re-Think on Johnson Street Bridge http://is.gd/5SUn7 [...]
Victoria City Councillor Philippe Lucas mused with Murray Langdon this afternoon on a referendum in 2011 with a number of issues on the ballot:
http://gregoryhartnell.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/victoria-city-councillor-philippe-lucas-johnson-street-bridge-homelessness-harm-reduction-other-issues-on-2011-ballot/
Anne Russo reports in email to JSB.org volunteers that the New Democratic Party’s Victoria Member of Parliament Denise Savoie has reported that Conservative Transport MInister John Baird has confirmed that the federal grant of $21,000,000 can be applied to a refurbishment project for the Johnson Street Bridge, if that is the way Council intends to solve the issue of its current unacceptable condition.
That is certainly very good news, as is the news that Mat Wright and others from the JSB.org group have requested interviews with the Mayor, Dean Fortin, and Victoria City Hall staff to advance the concerns of our group, and to try to discern the next steps the City is likely to take and its main opposition should take.
Notwithstanding some indications from some Victoria City Councillors that they are now more open to new information forthcoming about various refurbishment options, and without wanting to in any way disparage the significance of our own historically significant achievement in terms of numbers of disgruntled Victoria voters opposing a sitting government’s plans, it should be noted for the record that not a single Victoria City Councillor has yet displayed the humility or political savvy to recognize the error of his or her old ways, and to come over to our side, to endorse our mandate to save the bridge.
Until that happens, we have only one real friend on Council, Geoff Young, and that means our petition victory is pyrrhic at best… so far.
If our sheer numbers don’t do the trick, one wonders what will move them?
Amazingly, there is nothing, as far as I can discern, at Denise Savoie’s website about the $21,000,000 from the feds being able to be applied to the refurbishment of the Johnson Street Bridge:
http://denisesavoie.ndp.ca/
I stand to be corrected, but this omission does seem odd, and one wonders what it could possibly mean?
Could it be that Denise Savoie has actually embarrassed her friend Dean Fortin by throwing a spanner into the works of his ‘replacement’ plan for the old bridge?
After all, one of his constant themes was that if Council were to vote to refurbish the bridge, it would very likely end up costing more than the ‘replacement’ option, mainly because the former had no senior government funding at all, and the latter had it from two levels of government.
That argument obviously does not any longer apply, and Denise Savoie’s new information from Minister Baird, conveyed to JSB.org volunteers through Anne Russo’s email update, must be very upsetting for the frustrated mayor.