News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

The Cariboo Direct Farm Market Association’s request that power fees for approximately $500 in Boitanio Park be waived for the Friday summer markets was denied by City Council last night.

(The Farmer's Market is a regular fixture in the park throughout the spring and summer, providing local farmers, crafters and ranchers a venue for selling their products to the community.)

Councillors Rathor, Walters and Hughes expressed concern that the Farmer’s Market was denied the waiver. The request was denied because the Grants-in-Aid application deadline for 2012 was not met.

Councillor Rathor asked Mayor Cook how they got the fees waived in the past and what options they have at this point. Mayor Cook deferred the question to Chief Administrative Officer Brian Carruthers.

“The groups are responsible for applying—we don’t monitor them,” Brian Carruthers stated. “We assess the applications that we receive. We went to great lengths to refine the process to assure that these issues were addressed. I can’t speak as to why they didn’t apply.”

Councillor Hughes noted that the Farmer’s Market brings a lot of people in to Williams Lake and said that she’d like to see ‘grace’ extended to them, and Councillor Walters said that the situation is ‘unfortunate.’

“Maybe there is a creative way to make this better,” she suggested.  Councillor Bourdon said that he supports the Farmers Market initiative, but said that when the requests come forward, Council needs to consider all the other groups they support. “We have to be consistent,” he said. “Our process is fair.”

“I’m hearing that we're supportive of this initiative; but we spent a lot of time of the process for grant-in-aid applications,” Mayor Cook said. “We want to make sure that when we send them the letter, we mention that we appreciate what they do and reiterate the timeline of the application.”

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