Craig Gilbert | [email protected]
Jasper鈥檚 plastics ban-inspired waste reduction bylaw is the law of the land.
Town councillors voted 4-1 Tuesday.
Coun. Rico Damota voted against the bylaw. Councillors Scott Wilson and Bert Journault were absent.
Damota said he isn鈥檛 against a bag ban, but didn鈥檛 agree with the bylaw as it is written. He said he disagrees with the removal of a five-cent charge for plastic bags the previous version of the bylaw would have compelled retailers to charge customers. The word 鈥渟oft鈥� entered the conversation.
鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a right way to send a message and I think we鈥檙e too loosey goosey with this byaw,鈥� he said.
Parks Canada superintendent Alan Fehr has signed off, agreeing the bylaw probably won't adversely affect the environment or impinge on Parks' jurisdiction over land use planning.
Mayor Richard Ireland came into the meeting about halfway through. He said he and town CAO Mark Fercho attended a session on waste reduction at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual conference in Quebec City last week that had eye-opening information but no proposed solutions.
鈥淲e need to define 鈥榮ingle-use鈥�,鈥� he said, lamenting that he knows anecdotally some businesses stockpiled plastic bags in response to the bylaw being developed earlier this year. 鈥淎 lot of the impact of the bylaw is the social licence 鈥� letting people know this is the direction we鈥檙e going in.鈥�
He said he couldn鈥檛 imagine the bylaw being received as a knock on business with the five-cent rule removed, and businesses permitted to exhaust their existing inventory, even if that takes place after the bylaw comes into effect. The vision remains to enact it July 1.
鈥淚 have no doubt this will come back at some point,鈥� he said. 鈥淟et it work its way out through the summer and we鈥檒l come back (to it) in the fall as we must.鈥�
Coun. Jenna McGrath said she opposed the bag fee because business owners told her they felt they shouldn鈥檛 be told how to run their shop after acting responsibly on their own for years.
Coun. Paul Butler said the fee鈥檚 removal moves the bylaw away from being about waste reduction and toward being about waste replacement.
鈥淲e have talked about this for months,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are objectors, but broadly council has a consensus that we need to move forward with this. There are some who will never support a bag ban (and) we鈥檙e derelict in our duty if we don鈥檛 make a decision here.鈥�
Slow and steady
Councillors will debate the draft traffic bylaw, in other words a possible speed limit reduction in the townsite, again in two weeks. They discussed a trio of options mapped out before them during a meeting held June 4, and folded in yet another.
Butler said after dismissing a 40 km/h speed limit everywhere in town earlier this year, an idea supported by Councillors Damota and Bert Journault, he was warming to it.
They seemed cool to be sure to the possibility of 鈥渟ign pollution鈥� and the attendant $28,000 pricetag tied to the previously floated 鈥淥ption B,鈥� dropping the limit to 30 km/h town-wide with a 50 km/h exception for Connaught Drive.
Operations manager John Greathead explained that each intersection between Connaught and a side street - Hazel, Miette, Pyramid Lake, all of them - would require 30 km/h and 50 km/h signs because regulations require them in speed limit change zones. There would be 35 more of them around the town at nearly $800 a pop.
They would take about a month to come in on order, and about 80 person hours of work would be added to the ops department鈥檚 schedule to install them.
Greathead said they would be able to figure it out with enough lead time, but that they鈥檙e already 鈥渁t a crush point,鈥� with solid waste and recycling removal backing up and the garage looking to hire a mechanic.
鈥淲e鈥檙e busy.鈥�
