It seems a group of North Burnaby residents who've been waiting 14 years for a city-wide emergency notification system will have to wait a bit longer.
At last night's meeting, council decided to not approve $25,000 in funding to hire a consultant to update Burnaby's 2005 Mass Notifications Systems Study at this time.
Coun. Dan Johnston said there were issues with the report and council passed his motion to refer it back to staff.
The report was a response to a May 6 delegation by Art Quan, who appeared on behalf of Capitol Hill residents on the community advisory panel for Chevron's North Burnaby refinery. The group has been calling for a "speedy implementation" of a localized system that would notify residents near the refinery of an emergency, which could eventually cover the whole city.
"The community advisory panel has been anxiously waiting many years to have a rapid emergency notification system in place," Quan said at the meeting in early May.
Quan also told council that his group had been working with Chevron and waiting 14 years for an emergency notification system. Chevron's proposed system would be web-based, requiring no hardware, which is used in North and West Vancouver.
"We realize the neighbourhood around Chevron's North Burnaby refinery is not the only community in Burnaby that could benefit from an emergency notification system," he said. "We acknowledge that there are numerous pipelines that run throughout Burnaby and large crude oil storage and other petroleum product storage facilities, as well as industrial facilities near other Burnaby neighbourhoods, all (have) potential for serious incidents."
Quan did not respond to the Burnaby NOW's request for comment in time for press deadline.
The report that came up at last night's council meeting before being referred back would have used $25,000 in gaming funds to hire a consultant to update the Mass Notifications Systems Study from 2005.
The consultant would have evaluated the feasibility and advisability of implementing a mass notification system for Burnaby, according to a finance report.
