Good evening. Uh just a quick note, tonight we will be
live streaming and recording this meeting. The recordings will be made
available on the district website. I will call to order the Committee of
the Whole meeting for Monday, July 27th, 2026 at 7:00 p.m.
We'd like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is within
the traditional territory of the Sekani people of the McLeod Lake Indian Band.
Please note that all comments and questions from the public must pertain
to items listed on the agenda. Are there any members of the public in
attendance this evening who wish to comment on the agenda?
Seeing no one. Uh administration, are there any members
of the public attending through Zoom or phone that wish to comment on the
agenda? >> No, Mr. Chair.
» Thank you. Then, may I have a motion to receive the
operations month-end report for June? >> So moved.
» Thank you, Councillor McMeechan. Does any member of Council have a
question for Mr. Murray? Mayor Atkinson.
» Um what the threshold is to issue an unsightly order?
We're looking at the files and some some properties towards the town office
and the neighbors weren't happy and what what has to be there to
issue that? >> So, [clears throat] there is no exact
threshold. Uh it all depends on how bad the property is, whether it came as an
as an complaint or was noticed by staff, whether the owner or tenants going to
clean it up. Uh so, it's generally we make initial
contact and give them a little bit of a week or two to clean it up.
Uh after that, we issue we may issue a warning or move forward to an unsightly
property order, and we got to get them to clean up the property.
» Okay. And I have one under the bottom of page
six, um file 0782026,
the dog surrender. Um in district
um how was that animal for a week? Does it
Does that um dog order pay for that animal's boarding fees for
any dog that >> Yeah, that was Excuse me. That was a
Monday to a Friday, so it didn't really cost us as much because it didn't incur
the overtime on the weekend, but yes, all all costs were recovered.
» Okay. I just wanted to make a quick reminder for everybody in the room to
have your mics on in case you don't have them on already.
Uh does anyone else have a question for Mr. Murray?
No. Mr. Murray, do you have anything to add
to your reports? >> Not at this time, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
» All right. All in favor?
No one opposed. That's carried. May I have a motion to receive the RCMP
month-end report for June? >> So moved.
» Councilor Barnes. Uh
Detachment Commander Brazeau is not present tonight, but are there any
questions that administration could forward? Uh Councilor Wright.
» Thank you. I was curious about the comment on the bottom of page nine where
he uh they they make a a ref- reference to summer and there's most likely an
increase of activity, most likely due to an influx of people in the community.
And I would love just to have a little bit more details on what they meant by
that. Is it like the tree planters, or is there other people coming to the
community that aren't normally here in the summer? I just like to little know a
little bit more what they are seeing to make sure we're aware of it as well.
» Mm. Fair enough. Good point.
Are there any other questions? >> I
» not a question so much I guess just a comment I noticed once again there's six
assaults so it's been a while since we've had that
many reported. >> Mhm.
» [cough and clears throat]
» Is everyone in favor of this report? Favor?
No one is opposed so that carries.
May I have a motion to receive the fire month end report for June?
» So moved. >> Councilor Kylo, thank you. Does any
member of council have a question for Fire Chief Guys?
Seeing none, Fire Chief Guys, do you have anything to add to your reports?
» Not at this time, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you.
All in favor? Carried.
May I have a motion to receive the recreation services month end report for
June? >> So moved.
» Mayor Atkinson. Uh does any member of council have a
question regarding this report? Mayor Atkinson.
» Thank you. Just want to pass on congratulations to acting director
Seabert for the very successful uh um Rock the Ridge Line event on Saturday
night. Beth did an amazing job as always.
» Here, here.
Miss Seabert, do you have anything to add to your reports?
» Not at this time, sir. >> Thank you. All in favor?
That carries. Um did I just see a representative from
the RCMP come in? >> Conservation officer.
» Conservation officer, okay. Just making sure we couldn't get those questions
dealt with. >> [laughter]
» Uh may I have a motion to receive the finance month end report for June?
» So moved. >> Councilor Wright.
Does any member of council have a question regarding this report?
Seeing none, Miss Bourne, do you have anything to add to this report?
» Not at this time, Mr. Chair. >> Thank you.
All in favor? That carries.
And may I have a motion to receive the council's strategic priorities 2026
second quarter reports? >> So moved.
» Councillor McMeekin. And does any member of council have a
question regarding the second quarter reports?
No one? Uh Miss Smith, do you have anything to
add add to your report? >> Not at this time.
» All in favor? That carries.
Is there any member of council who has other business?
Mayor Atkinson. >> Um I I just like to um remind um the
directors and uh corporate staff uh CAO um
a number of the reports had acronyms in here uh which mean nothing to people who
don't know what that means. So, just a a reminder that for a public document,
could not use acronyms so people actually know what we're the we're
talking about. >> Mhm.
Maybe there could be a general key that's just attached to the report all
all the time at the end so that we don't have to keep hunting for those acronyms.
That might be an easy way to handle it with minimal labor.
» Or or just don't use them.
» Mhm. Or that. >> [laughter]
» Does administration have any other item of business?
» No. >> Thank you. Then may I please have a
motion to adjourn the meeting. >> Moved.
» Councillor Barnes. Seconds? Mayor Atkinson. All in favor?
That carries. Meeting adjourned.
» The land in which we gather is within the traditional territory of the
Secwepemc people of the McLeod Lake Indian Band.
We'll move on to adoption of minutes of special meeting held June 22nd, 2026.
Are there any errors or omissions? Hearing none, we'll adopt them as
presented. Uh community of the whole meeting June
22nd, 2026. Are there any errors or omissions?
Hearing none, we'll adopt them as presented. And the regular meeting of
June 22nd, 2026. Are there any errors or omissions?
Hearing none, we'll adopt them as presented.
Um and can I We do have a uh late item this evening, so may I have a
motion that the following item to be uh added to our agenda this evening, and
that is a petition and delegation from the
Conservation Officer Service. Councillor McMeekin, Councillor
Burmister. Any discussion? All in favor?
That carries. Have a motion uh to adopt the agenda.
» So moved. >> Councillor Burns.
» Second. >> Councillor Burmister.
Any discussion?
All in favor? That carries.
Public comments and questions. Please note that all comments and questions
must pertain to items listed on the agenda. Are there any members of the
public in attendance this evening who wish to comment on the agenda.
Seeing none, administration, are there any members of the public attending
through Zoom or phone that wish to comment on the agenda?
» No, your worship. >> Thank you. Thank you.
So, this evening, um we welcome Inspector Eamon McArthur
McArthur, the uh inspector for the BC Conservation
Officer Service out of Prince George, and he is here to um
present a special recognition award to the District of Mackenzie. So, come on
up. >> Wow.
Thank you, Mayor Atkinson. Thank you, Council.
Sit here so I can stand up. Uh so, in 2023
uh there was a oh, due to a number of different
circumstances, there was quite the uh it was quite a bear year. As, you know, for
those that are that were in Mackenzie at the time, well recall.
And uh at the time, the District of Mackenzie
had the the white dumpsters with the with the wooden lids,
which caused a considerable amount of
problems. A lot of those dumpster lids got broken, and a lot of those dumpster
lids uh were flipped off by
black and grizzly bears alike. And the district did come to come together,
and they created what we have today with those dumpsters that are currently
within the district, which I use this as a
as a case in point in a lot of discussions when it comes to uh bear
attractant and attractant management, just because of how fantastic those
dumpsters actually are. And I thought I would be remiss if I didn't try to
recognize the district for the good work that they did on bear attractant and
bear attractant management. So, I'm just going to read out a little
piece on the
Can you hear this? Is this good? Am I
» Um yeah, if you talk loud enough, yeah, sure.
» [laughter]
» So, I'm just going to read read out what what I have on here. It's a special
recognition award for the district. The BCCOS has maintained regular
communication with the District of Mackenzie regarding waste management
practice in response to the high level of human-bear conflicts experienced
within communities in the Omineca Zone during 2023.
Prior to 2022, the District of Mackenzie worked collaboratively collaboratively
with the BCCOS to draft and implement bylaws aimed at reducing bear
attractants and minimizing bear garbage conflicts.
Despite these efforts, Mackenzie remained one of the communities
experiencing higher than average bear conflict rates in 2024.
And in response to this, the District continued working with the BCCOS to
identify and implement additional measures to further reduce human-bear
interactions. As a result, the District of Mackenzie
developed and implemented a bear-resistant dumpster design that has
been adopted as the standard dumpster model throughout the community.
The lids were designed to be sufficiently heavy to prevent bears from
accessing the contents while allowing residents to dispose of the waste safely
and conveniently. The measures undertaken by the District
are fully aligned with the BCCOS mandate to reduce attractants and mitigate
human-bear conflicts. These proactive efforts demonstrate a
strong commitment to protecting public safety and wildlife within the
community.
And I'll just say I like I'll just say it's safe.
» Yeah. >> Yeah.
And I I'd like more communities to adopt it. Unfortunately, I'm out of Prince
George and most of the dumpsters that they use in Prince George are all
contracted out, so maybe it's a small community thing, but
it's I think it's something that even bigger communities can look at. it too.
if this community can come together and do something like that,
then you know what? Anything's really possible, so.
» So, if you want to come up here and inspect your work.
Yeah. Cuz we want to put this on our um
website >> so that people in the community realize
that this is made of >> Yeah.
» Yeah, awesome.
Nice job though, I appreciate it. >> Thank you. You're welcome.
» No, thanks so much for doing that. >> No, absolutely. I always have to give
that appreciation to go, you know, you need to give credit where credit is due,
so. >> Yeah, that's very nice. Well, you know,
it's it's really good that we have such a
close relationship with the conservation officer's office.
» Yeah. >> Can't We can't work in silos in small
towns. >> Well, everybody knows everybody, that's
it. >> Very true.
» I'm not going to be anywhere not planning on completing anytime soon, so
I'm going to be the inspector for at least the next 10 to 15 years. That's
the goal anyway, till retirement, I think.
No, absolutely. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you.
» I could do the thing for Director Marine, cuz
» Oh, that was That was a bit of a >> Is he working for Marine?
Aylmer's This is This is the public works
manager. And uh he's the one that
made sure it happened. >> No problem.
» Yeah, okay. Thank you.
» Thank you. >> Take that off. Thanks, don't forget to
do whatever.
It's awesome.
Hey.
We're official. So, moving on to correspondence, may I
have a motion that the correspondence listed on the agenda be received?
So moved. >> Councillor Wright.
Councillor Kylo. Any discussion? All in favor?
Carries. So for action, we have a request from CN Rail
to um declare September 21st to 27th, 2026
Rail Safety Week. So have Can I have that recommendation
from Councillor Barnes? Councillor Kylo, any discussion on that?
Yes. >> We've done this in the past, right?
» Yes. Yeah. It's a kind of a an annual event,
so. Anyone else?
» Just a >> Yeah.
» Comment, when it comes to Rail Safety Week, I know a person that hit has hit a
train with a pickup,
a trailer, a quad, and a boat, if you can believe it.
So some people do need a little bit of help.
» [laughter] >> Remind them. Yes. Thank you.
All in favor? That carries.
Is there anything council wishes to address in the for consideration or
center table file correspondence? Councillor Wright.
» Thank you. Uh the first one I would like to draw people's attention to is 7.2.5,
the NCLGA. Um
there's letters I was called this letter. I just want to draw people's
attention to this has been an update since this has been sent out to on the
last page with the before you get to the BC resources. There's no page numbers.
I'm not sure what it is. But it has the members webinars. And the one webinar on
November 18th, I specifically asked because of how strong our access and
inclusion committee is that access and inclusion committees be invited to this
webinar. Um and that was approved and is now on
the website. It's just not reflected since this was sent out. So if the I
Councillor Meegan, since you're here, if there's a way to make sure that
information gets to the access and inclusion committee that they're welcome
and encouraged to attend that webinar, that would be fantastic.
Um there's no motion for that. I just wanted to draw people's attention to it.
Um and then the other one I wanted to talk about was 7.2.8.
Um I didn't know if staff had any information to answer this question
about the update about getting bylaws on the website and if not, if we wanted the
report to come back to respond to the residents um questions. I'll I'll maybe
I'll ask staff first what if they have something they want to say before any
motion. >> um
I I had that notated also, so Ms. Keen is is uh prepared to provide us with an
update. >> Thank you.
» Yes, okay. So, um so we have been just uh we've been
updating this as part of our quarterly update, so there have been some, but you
will notice that we've had quite a delay on this project. We started last year,
but just due to some other priorities due to legislation, we've had to kind of
push it to this year. But we've purchased software that'll have a better
search engine. It's very similar to what we've had before, and so we'll have all
of our documentation which have been uploaded. They just have to be um a
final audit by us just make sure everything that's on there is accurate,
and then it'll be just some staff training, public comms, and I'm hoping
we'll have it uh done by the end of the year.
Yeah. So, mhm. Thank you. You're welcome. Perfect.
» Yes, Councillor Keilow. >> Um 7.2.6,
the Outdoor Recreation Council has a survey for identifying resource roads
that matter, and I'd like to make a motion to add
that to our district website and try and promote it to get people to say, "Hey,
we're losing access to the back country all over the province." And
we need to help them create a database so they
can go lobby the government to keep the important ones identified and keep the
important ones open. >> Right. Yeah, that new I I I certainly
agree with that. Um I know that I I checked into that, so
that the survey's open for an entire year till July 2027, so that's going to
give people lots of notice, so I certainly think that's a great idea.
Anyone else have any comments on that? To add that to our website, Councillor
Burmas key. >> I'll just second the motion.
» Okay. Yep. Anyone else? Okay. All in favor?
That carries. And I've also been I got a email from the chair of the regional
district last week, and we are having another meeting in Prince George
with the Ministry of Forests the Wednesday before our next um R D
meeting. I think it's August 19th. And the Ministry of Forests person who has
taken over this file, um Greg Vandolah, used to work in Mackenzie, so he's well
aware of you know, what it looks like up here. So hopefully he's Sounds like he's
very engaged and hoping to get something done, so step in the right direction.
So >> Um
» Yeah, go ahead. >> 7.2.9
uh Melinda Shaw sent letter I was in support of the community for
our for us trying to change the
reclassification to iron for data centers, and we should thank her for
being involved and taking the time to do that.
» Okay. >> [clears throat]
» I'm not making a motion. I'm just saying we should
recognize her, thank her. >> Okay.
Do we need a motion to do that, Ms. Kate?
» Okay. Pardon me, I would just like to thank her for it.
» Oh, oh you Okay. Oh, you Okay. So publicly thank her for that. Yeah, for
sure. Okay.
Any Anything else, Councillor Kyle?
Nope. Okay. Anyone else have anything they wish to pull?
Okay, we'll move on to administrative reports, business facade
improvement program July 26th, the July intake.
Recommendation that council approves the applications from Finley Forest
Management Limited, McKenzie Hose and Fitting, Mack True Brewing Limited,
McKenzie Autumn Lodge Society, and Arctic Divide Mechanical
to the business facade improvement program to a maximum combined amount of
$8,617.10.
» Move the recommendation. >> Councillor Burns, seconded by Councillor
Burmoski. Any discussion on this? Councillor Burmoski.
» It's wonderful to see that many people apply this year, you know, it's a shame
we can't fully fund them because there are so many, but it's great that there's
the uptake. >> Yeah, exactly, because we have had years
with when we have not utilized all the money, so this is this is really good
news for all of us. Any further discussion? All in favor?
That carries.
Uh 8.2 referral 1997-2404-0, notice of work with McKenzie Gravel
Limited. And the um
administration is looking for direction from council about the request.
» So I'd move that we respond that we support
approval of the project. >> Okay.
Second that. Okay. Councillor Wright.
» I I My question is to staff, is does that motion
suffice for that it includes the the recommendation you have that it has also
has the required to obtain soil substance removal permit?
Or was that the was that the I just want to make sure that that
encompasses that. >> If that was um Councillor Burmoski's
intent with his motion was that it's the answer answers to the questions as
highlighted as well as the recommendation to approve the project.
» Um yeah, if we need to make that change, that's fine. I did assume that that
would just get triggered if we approved it. Okay. So
Okay, I'm in support of it including that, yes.
» Yeah, yeah. >> And it does generate revenue for us. So
it is a bonus. Any further discussion?
All in favor? That carries.
Um 8.3 the quarterly activity report from the accessibility and inclusion
group recommendation that council receives this report for information.
» So moved. >> So Barnes.
» Second. >> Councilor Abramowski. Any discussion?
Councilor Barton. >> Well again just a comment and we've
talked about it lots before this this group does a great job.
» Yes they certainly do. We're leaps and bounds ahead of most
communities in this portfolio for sure. So all in favor of receipt?
That carries.
Uh 8.4 the 2025 annual report final draft.
In accordance with section 99 of the community charter council will provide
an opportunity for any final feedback from the public in regard to the 2025
annual report prior to adoption. Are there any members of the public in
attendance this evening who wish to comment on the annual report?
Administrator are there any members of the public attending through Zoom or
phone that wish to comment on the annual report?
» No your worship. >> Me?
Did we receive any written comments? >> No we did not.
» Okay. So the recommendation that council
approves the 2025 annual report. >> So moved.
» Councilor Wright. Councilor McMeekin. Any further discussion?
All in favor? That carries.
Council reports Councilor Wright has written report Does
member of council have a verbal report they wish to share?
Okay, hearing none. Um, any member of council have any
unfinished business?
New business?
We have no bylaws this evening. We have no notice of motion.
Um, coming events. The McCloud Lake Indian Band Annual General Assembly is
going to be held on August 5th, 6th, and 7th. And um, they
extended invitation for anyone to participate on the the Friday the 7th is
my understanding. The 5th and the 6th are generally McCloud Lake Indian Band
members that meet on those days, so. So, um, we have no inquiries in person.
Do we have any online inquiries? >> No, your worship.
» Okay. So, we just need one more motion.
Okay. Second? >> Second.
» Okay. All in favor? It carries. Thank you.