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Tonight is the Commercial Street Night Market and I will be out with my camera taking some street photos of the event so if you spot me, feel free to take a minute and say hello. I love meeting our readers and hearing your stories.
The night market is more than a great place to catch some free entertainment, buy from local artisans and eat delicious food from some of the best food trucks in the city. It’s also a place where you can see the diversity and style that people in Nanaimo have.
Each time I go to the night market I see a glimpse of both the vibrant city that already exists here as well as the possibility of an even better one emerging from the shell of the old one.
So put on your loudest Hawaiian shirt and head on down to Commercial Street tonight to take part in making Nanaimo fun again.
Say cheese,
Mick Sweetman
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| | Community spotlight |
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The Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival will be racing this weekend at Maffeo Sutton Park, hosted by the Nanaimo Paddling Centre and Fairway Gorge Paddling Centre. The festival will feature dancing and music by the Crimson Coast Dance Society, a beer garden by Wolf Breweries, 500 metre races, a “guts and glory challenge,” food trucks and vendors and will help raise money for a new cancer treatment ward at the Nanaimo hospital.
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| Council corner |
At its July 7 meeting, Nanaimo city council approved $300,000 in funding for raised crosswalks at three locations in Nanaimo:
Townsite Road at St. Patrick's Crescent Portsmouth Road at Applecross Road Waddington Road at Dufferin Crescent
Council also directed staff to begin the process of drafting a bylaw that would ban the sale of specific species of invasive plants in the city. The city will partner with garden retailers and community groups on a public awareness campaign and update the city’s Invasive Plant Management Strategy looking at sites for removal of invasive species and restoring native plants.
Council allocated $125,000 for consultants for an economic impact assessment of changes to the Development Cost Charge and Amenity Cost Charge programs. Council selected a moderate investment scenario that would include priority projects for transportation and public works as well as maintain existing assets. The option for a full infrastructure program would have included funding for all growth related infrastructure projects but the staff report noted service levels could still have declined in some areas.
Changes to the city’s off-street parking regulations that eliminate minimum parking requirements in the Downtown Urban Centre were also adopted.
The city’s governance and priorities committee will meet on Monday, July 14 at 1 p.m. in the Vancouver Island Conference Centre’s Shaw Auditorium and the next regular council meeting will be on Monday, July 21.
On the agenda for the governance and priorities committee meeting are staff reports on demolition and deconstruction waste regulations, a review of the City Plan and a review of parking bylaws, including parking rates and penalties.
| | On the Island |
🌊 Read Cowichan Valley reporter Eric Richard’s reflections on how a story written for The Discourse about the St. Ann’s Garden Club helped the organization secure funding from Island Health to match the program’s operating costs. |
| In other news |
👉 The City of Nanaimo purchased land for a new south end recreation and community centre with support from the province. The city paid $3.85 million for the land where the community centre will be built on 11th Street, and another $1.25 million for a parking lot for the facility. The province ponied up $2.5 million for the Growing Communities Fund for the project. The total estimate to build the centre is between $40 and $80 million. The Nanaimo News Bulletin and Nanaimo News Now have the story.
👉 NDP Nanaimo-Lantzville MLA George Anderson is calling on the Minister of Health to follow through on commitments made during the election to build a new tower and cardiac catheterization lab at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Anderson took the rare step of posting his letter to the minister on social media to let “the ministers know this is a priority in the community.” The Nanaimo News Bulletin has the story.
👉 A $1.9 million federal grant will help fund 11 programs for people experiencing homelessness in Nanaimo, Cowichan and Duncan. Half a million of that money will go towards operational costs for the new year-round drop in centre on Victoria Road that opened in January.
Also included is funding for the 7-10 Club’s food program, Indigenous-led harm reduction teams at AVI Health and Community Services and the Island Crisis Care Society’s Connections4Hope program. Nanaimo News Now has the story.
| | Have your say
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📣 The province’s special committee on democratic and electoral reform is accepting written submissions about democratic engagement, voter participation and models for electing MLAs. You can make your submission by Friday, July 25 at 2 p.m. through the Parliamentary Committees Consultation Portal.
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