Quesnel City Council has tipped its hand on how it plans to spend the more than 3.2 million dollars it received from the provincial government’s Growing Communities Fund.
The issued was raised at last (Tuesday) night’s City Council meeting.
Councillor Mitch Vik, the Chair of the Financial Sustainability and Audit Committee, suggested that a large portion of the money go towards the Johnston Bridge Replacement project.
“The committee agreed that until the full cost of this project are flushed out and we do have a reasonable idea of what it’s going to cost but we’re going to get one final update on that. The remaining balance of the GCF should be placed into reserve until we understand completely what the Johnston Bridge project will cost.”
Council also voted to spend some of the money on a new fire truck.
” Although Council has directed staff in January to proceed with a plan for long term borrowing for the new fire truck that we required. The recently announced GCF fund has flexibility within the parameters to allow for this type of expenditure. Using 800 thousand of the GCF to purchase the truck, as well as 400 thousand from our fire equipment reserve fund, it will fund the entire fire truck purchase negating the need to borrow.”
Getting back to the money for the bridge, a statutory reserve was set up for it.
Director of Finance Kari Bolton noted that it was a requirement of the funding as it can then be tracked and reported on the city’s financial statements.
The City has also received 6 million dollars for that project from the federal government.
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