DAN CEARNS, Local Journalism Initiative, for The Standard
BROCK: Brock Township council has kept the issue of where to install a local art piece separate from a Beaverton Harbour master plan project. At a meeting, on Monday, April 27th, Ward 2 Councillor Claire Doble moved to initiate the creation of an Ad Hoc Beaverton Harbour Committee “to review Sky Woman and other related projects” and make recommendations to council. Sky Woman is a sculpture made by local artist Ron Baird. However, councillors were uneasy about tying the placement of the sculpture to the much larger Beaverton Harbour plan process. “The Beaverton Harbour project is huge. It’s not something we can tackle in a timely fashion, and I don’t want to see Sky Woman caught up in the Beaverton Harbour [project],” Mayor Debbie Bath-Hadden opined. Ward 5 Councillor Lynn Campbell questioned if there’s been any movement regarding creating a staff report for the master plan project. “There actually has not been a report prepared yet. The preliminary work, that was done last year, was a Facebook poll to gauge support,” CAO Robert Lamb replied, adding, getting a report going would likely require holding a special council meeting. Ward 3 Councillor Walter Schummer asked to have Councillor Doble’s motion tabled until council received a Beaverton Harbour report but his tabling motion lost 4-3. Councillor Doble then stated she was comfortable creating two committees instead of one, an ad hoc committee to deal with Sky Woman and a Beaverton Harbour committee, so she changed her motion to reflect that. But Councillor Schummer had some concerns about the new motion. “I have serious concerns that we haven’t received the Harbour report yet. I have serious concerns about two committees, because I don’t know how you can realistically divorce the Sky Woman project from the harbour,” he explained. “I just don’t see how it can work.” Still, Ward 4 Councillor Cria Pettingill expressed her support for a Sky Woman related committee, explaining this is “so this project has a chance of happening.” “I really feel we must do our job and get going with it,” Councillor Pettingill said. Council later passed a motion to create an ad hoc committee to deal with the placement of Sky Woman, and in the interim to have staff work on terms of reference and brainstorm for a harbour committee.
by The Standard | May 7th, 2020 Podcast https://thestandardnewspaper.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Beaverton-Harbour-Issues-May-7th-2020.mp3