Council voted to have Rossland join the West Kootenay Inter-Community Business License program. Businesses that operate across participating communities — Nelson, Castlegar, Creston and Kaslo — can pay an additional $85 to receive an inter-community business license on top of their regular business license, instead of purchasing a business license in each community. The $85 fee is collected in the community where the business has its main storefront or business address, and that community keeps the revenue.
Keep on plowin’
Council voted against a recommendation from staff to not have city employees plow single dwelling roadways in Rossland, unless staff needs to clear them to get access to infrastructure.The roadways in question are public roads, but are only used by one residence or property. A total of 34 roadways would have been affected, and the full list can be found under the agenda minutes for Tuesday night’s city council meeting at rossland.ca. Council members weren’t necessarily against taking these roadways off the plow list in the future, but didn’t feel it was the right time to cut what some residents most likely take for granted is a city-provided service. Council passed a motion to review the recommendation again in June 2017, with only Councillor Lloyd McLellan opposed.
Tourism Rossland presents business license survey results
Deanne Steven, executive director of Tourism Rossland, presented the results of a business license survey that Tourism Rossland recently conducted. Asked if they supported Tourism Rossland being funded through business license revenue, less 10 per cent, for the next three years, 70 per cent said yes and 21 per cent said no. Asked “if Tourism Rossland was to have their funding tied to business license revenue do you think that businesses would appreciate knowing that the business license fee is going to support Tourism Rossland rather than into general revenue?”, 80 per cent said yes, while 20 per cent said no.
Council asked to support Rossland Food Charter
Caley Mairin from the Rossland Food Group asked Rossland city council to consider providing input on a draft food charter that the Rossland Food Group is working on developing, and asked council to consider eventually adopting the food charter and incorporating it into the Official Community Plan. A food charter is “a high level document with overarching principles about food security, food access and vision for the community.” The Rossland Food Group hopes to have a draft ready by Oct. 21 and will then seek community engagement to revise the charter before presenting it to council.
Rossland council in favour of more beer
Council moved forward with a zoning bylaw amendment that will allow the Rossland Beer Company to open a larger micro-brewery in Rossland’s downtown area. Council approved a third reading of the bylaw following a very short public hearing. The city received no correspondence on the matter, and the only individual who showed up at the meeting to speak to the matter was Petri Ratio, co-owner of the brewery, who was obviously in favour.