After 12 months, what has our new city council accomplished?
Councillors chart a new direction
Derek Spalding, Daily News
Published: Saturday, November 07, 2009
The 2008 civic election brought a recognizable change to Nanaimo's city council as voters gave an overwhelmingly strong mandate to a new mayor and put their faith in three new politicians. These fresh faces called for change throughout their campaigns and though their philosophies differed slightly, all promised frugal spending in order to keep tax increases as low as possible.
Every candidate, incumbents and newbies, vowed to find a way to build a downtown hotel so the Port of Nanaimo Centre could reach its full potential. But the newly elected officials quickly found out that nearly half of the 2009 budget had already been earmarked for spending and they struggled to find ways to cut costs and put their own stamp on city priorities. Hotel developers with the will and the cash to build in Nanaimo are still nowhere to be found and, other than securing the green space in Neck Point Park, this council has little to show for its first year in office. The largest, most monumental change came when former city manager Jerry Berry, after two decades of service, surprisingly left his position in a shroud of secrecy.
Mayor John Ruttan calls the move a downsizing measure, one that cost the taxpayers nearly $500,000 for Berry's severance package.
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The past year has been a slow one for many communities because of a recession that dug its heels in even before last fall's election. In Nanaimo, many private projects have also been delayed, including the overhaul of the downtown casino and the Port Place shopping centre.
As council members head into the next round of budget talks, many say there will be a distinctively new direction for Nanaimo as these politicians look to delineate themselves from the previous administration.
Constructing a new hotel downtown was top of the priority list for Ruttan and his new crew. Council members were quick to ask for details about the phantom hotel project and wanted to understand why there were so many missed deadlines by Vancouver-based Millennium Developments.
Ruttan appointed himself head of the Port of Nanaimo advisory committee and said his main goal was to ensure the land for the hotel was given back to the city, which he said would prevent the title from getting tied up in any litigation. Council members negotiated with the developer and eventually had the land returned but the first major accomplishment looks much more routine. City staff say the contract had a provision for the return of the property, if Millennium failed to build a hotel. They were legally obliged to give it back.
"I pushed hard to get that back. It took four or five months, but we finally got it last spring," said Ruttan. "My understanding was if there was any litigation against the developer, a quick land search would reveal that they had a $10 investment on an expensive piece of land. Any lien on that title could impede development for several years and create need to get involved in litigation."
Council members then decided to hire an expert to seek out a developer with hopes to finally get a hotel. The project is considered the cornerstone of downtown revitalization and is expected to reduce the growing financial losses of the Vancouver Island Conference Centre, which cannot book to its capacity because of a lack of hotel space in Nanaimo.
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