Message from the Mayor

Message from the Mayor’s

Mayor Jack Bowers

At the October 18th Council Meeting, both the Yukon Government and WSP Engineering sent a delegation to meet with Council and the public to respond to questions and concerns of those residents living on Douglass Drive and Yates Crescent. Everyone wanted to know what can be done to return their streets back to a usable condition. I commend the delegation for attending and being open & understanding as Council and residents expressed their concerns. The whole idea with having the delegation attend the meeting was to get answers. To assist the delegation in being better prepared to provide meaningful answers, the Town provided a list of questions from Council and Administration in advance. These questions reflected the comments that the Town Office and Council have received over these last few months. The delegation appreciated the list, because they could then respond with something more than “I’m not sure, so I’ll have to get back to you.” I was impressed with how both the Yukon Government and WSP are handling the contactor situation, and we look forward to the contractor soon leaving Douglass and Yates in a usable condition for the winter months. Another topic that I want to touch on is the issue of our community having enough firewood for this season. Vangorda Enterprises is not the only company in Town that provides firewood in the community so, in my capacity as Mayor, I wanted to ensure that all distributors in Faro were going to have firewood for their customers. The Yukon Government’s Director of Forest Management, Michelle Seacott, called me to say that commercial woodlot permits have been approved throughout the Yukon for most commercial firewood producers and that the backlog of firewood demand is starting to be met. This is welcome news, for all suppliers, but mainly for the many residents in Faro who count on firewood to heat their homes in the winter. For a complete list of Faro Business please visit the Business Directory on the Faro website at http://faro.ca/p/business-directory. Finally, we are entering a period where many decisions are needed, and your Council will be busy moving our way forward with deliberations on 2023 budgeting, the Official Community Plan (OCP), new bylaws, and development of RFPs for the sale of assets including the Old Fire Hall, the Legion Building, and vacant developed lots throughout the community. While it will be sad to see some of these buildings sold, Council is confident that new investors can breathe new life into them, and those buildings can have greater purpose again. With an extreme shortage of commercial and industrial space in the community, the right investors should be able to fill an important void. At the same time, the sale of these buildings will remove a maintenance expense from municipal budgets and create much needed property tax revenue.

Council Meeting

Council Chamber is open to the public. The Next Regular Meetings are: Copies of meeting agendas are posted at the Town Office, Post Office, CIBC Bank, and at faro.ca.

November 1 November 15 December 6 December 20

The Public Package will be available on the Town’s Website at the time of the meeting at: http://www.faro.ca/p/filesand-documents Remote Attendance is available with the Zoom App. To Join a Zoom Meeting go to : https://zoom.us/join Meeting ID: 506 321 8045 Passcode: 641202