Coun. Patricia Heintzman, the sole member of council to oppose District of Squamish staff's recommendation to support an applicant-led process for the downtown Business Improvement Association (BIA) renewal on Feb. 8, this week saw her attempt to rekindle the matter fall short.
On Tuesday (Feb. 22), Heintzman tried to convince council to reconsider its decision - with the help of Coun. Bryan Raiser who wasn't present for the Feb. 8 debate.
However, there wasn't much debate since protocol restricted actual debate from taking place unless the motion to reconsider passed.
Raiser put forward the motion and Heintzman seconded it.
"I think everyone needs to be fully aware of the ramifications of the initial vote," said Raiser. "I think it's worth another look and another vote. If not, we could lose the BIA."
Coun. Corinne Lonsdale would not be swayed.
"I have not learned anything new that I didn't know last week," she said. "So I will be opposed."
Heintzman voiced her concerns loudly.
"We're not understanding how onerous getting 70 per cent of an applicant-led petition is," she said. "It's very onerous."
She used the example of the district-owned land rented out to the Parkside Restaurant.
"Because the BIA was given the list of landowners by the district, they contacted the district only to find out the district had to forward the petition on to the tenant," she said, adding this was likely the case for several out-of-town landowners who probably wouldn't bother forwarding the petition to their tenants.
"It's hard to be proactive in a very reactive society."
Robin Arthurs, district corporate services general manager who has been working with the BIA since July, was not sympathetic.
"The BIA is required to keep an up-to-date list of tenants to report to for their annual general meeting," she said. "So they should actually have better information than the DOS because we only have landowner information."
Coun. Doug Race was also unmoved by Heintzman's and Raiser's concern.
"I'm not going to support this motion," he said. "I think it was adequately dealt with at Committee of the Whole meeting; the process is underway and revisiting it will not add anything to the process."
Heintzman made one last appeal to council before the motion was voted upon.
"I think that even though the BIA has 99 per cent support from active business owners, we are leading them to failure," she said.
"I think there was misunderstanding between the BIA and our staff as to what the applicant-led petition and counterpetition understanding was."
The motion to reconsider an applicant-led petition failed with Race, Lonsdale, Coun. Rob Kirkham and Coun. Paul Lalli opposed. Mayor Greg Gardner did not participate in the discussion or vote because of a conflict of interest.
