Gibsons Coun. Stafford Lumley, who runs Smitty’s Oyster House on the Gibsons waterfront, wants council to recognize how well local businesses have been coping with COVID restrictions.
“Personally, I can tell you this summer was a grind,” Lumley said in his councillor’s report Sept. 15.
“You had to spend money to implement COVID procedures and then police them constantly. And I know every business I went to, that’s what they were doing,” he said.
“It’s just no fun telling people where to stand, to line up here, don’t do that. It was like a day care, it was like herding cats … and I know everyone did their best, and people got through it.”
Lumley also said he heard lots of feedback from people who were impressed by the way local businesses were managing things.
“People were really taking it seriously and doing a great job and should be commended for that,” he said.
Mayor Bill Beamish promised to take that message to the Gibsons and District Chamber of Commerce AGM, scheduled for Sept. 18, and suggested the Town also put a message of thanks to the business community on its website.
Supportive housing
Gibsons council has appointed Coun. Aleria Ladwig to be its representative on the community advisory committee BC Housing is setting up for the School Road supportive housing project, which is expected to open in December.
BC Housing will also be putting out a call for applications for other committee positions.
Coun. David Croal said he’d like to see the committee up and running before the tenants move in.
“There is still some community resentment towards the project, and I don’t want to wait until people are moving in and have problems,” he said.
“I’d rather know we were in a position to try and mitigate anything that comes up and be able to deal with it as it happens.”
During a committee meeting earlier in the day, Mayor Bill Beamish said supportive housing and related services have also come up during local government meetings with the province as part of the online version of the Union of BC Municipalities convention.
“It’s one thing to provide housing to people and to congregate them in a place, but they shouldn’t be doing that without providing additional supports in the community. That’s one thing that we’ll be asking the ministry for,” Beamish said, adding that he’s also raised the issue of concentration of services in the municipalities.
“We are one long community on the Sunshine Coast and there's nothing wrong with putting facilities and services in the rural areas and … looking at how they can decentralize some of the services as opposed to bringing them all into the populated areas. That’s one theme I think we want to keep talking about,” Beamish said.
