Committee Briefs: Dawson Sells Staff Housing and Moves to Shut Down Internet

by Dan Davidson

Buildings for Sale

It’s official. The Youth Centre in Dawson City is for sale. A decision to

This staff housing unit was sold by the administration in September. It was purchased by the contractor who originally built it. Photo by Dan Davidson

sell the often troubled building had been taken by the former city council before it was fired in April, but the town’s YTG appointed administration has made it official.

The other town building that went on the Coldwell Banker block is a staff housing duplex which the town built in the early 1990s to house employees who had formerly been housed in a unit belonging to the Yukon Housing Corporation.

Listed at $149,000 on the multiple listing service, the building has been sold for $160,000. It was originally built in 1990, using recycled building segments from the Westmark Hotel, at a cost in excess of $235,000.

Most recently the city’s treasurer and recreation director had occupied the building, but both positions are now vacant, and there seems to be no immediate prospect of filling either of them.

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Recreation Director Resigns

Recreation Director Jason Barber has resigned to pursue a career with the RCMP after ten years with the town, and city manager David Skidd informed the public meeting on September 21 that there were no plans to fill his job.

While there has been a recreation director in the community since the mid-1980s, Skidd said the need for the position was being reviewed in light of the town’s financial position.

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Planning Board Decision Rejected

The Trustee’s Advisory Committee was uniformly horrified at a decision taken by the town’s Planning Board. For some time the board has been the guardian of Dawson’s historic look in the downtown core, insisting on wooden siding for buildings. Late in August the board decided to allow the Yukon Housing Corporation to experiment with a product called “hardi plank siding” in the new unit that YHC is building on Fourth Avenue to replace one that burned a few years ago.

This was to be a one-year experiment with the material.

Committee members professed puzzlement, to say the least, at the board’s decision. Bill Bowie, who owns Arctic Inland Resources, pointed out that this flies in the face of decades of rulings in this area, and that the siding, which he referred to as “cementicious” had been proposed and rejected here before now.

“I cannot understand how this has gone through,” he said.

The committee's feelings had been made known at a meeting with YHC officials earlier, and David Skidd told the group that YHC had withdrawn its proposal on the basis of their objections.

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Internet to Be Shut Down

Customers of the town’s internet e-mail service “cityofdawson.ca” have until the end of December to find another service provider. In response to questions from the committee David Skidd reported that he and Trustee Ray Hayes have decided to terminate the service at the end of the year. The customer base has been declining due to continuing problems with the quality of the service, problems which none of the suggestions made by its technical support contractor at Polarcom have made any progress in solving.

“We will cease operating the system on December 31,” Skidd said, indicating that Hayes will have more to say on the subject when he returns from holidays.

Skidd said the decision was taken as part of a process leading to the development of a five year operations plan for the town.

He said the service is experiencing “significant losses” annually and that the town has not been able to get a handle on the problems related to it.

“The problems we’ve experienced recently, the lack of control over costs that arise from the way the technology is operating with respect to our relationship with NorthwesTel and others ... we felt that we could not manage the costs in such a way that it left the people of Dawson with an advantage.”

Despite the fact the town intends to shed its customer base, it will still be seeking requests for proposals for what might be the future of the internet service.

This might include offers to purchase or to operate the service.

There were not, Skidd said, any plans to alter the cable television service which the town offers.

Committee Briefs: Petitions approved by Advisory Committee

by Dan Davidson

An Obscura Request

While one of the members of the Trustee’s Advisory Committee remarked that the structure looked a bit like a packing crate, neither Bill Bowie nor any of the other members had any objections to a request to extend the life of the camera obscura that was erected on the public lawn in front of the dyke for the Riverfront Arts Festival last August.

Gary Parker, executive director of the Klondike Institute of Art and Culture, was before the committee on September 21 to request that the structure get a year’s lease on life.

A camera obscura is a darkened chamber in which the real image of an object is received through a small opening or lens and focussed in natural colour onto a facing surface rather than recorded on a film or plate.

In KIAC’s version several people can actually enter the structure, sit until their eyes adjust to the dark, and then view an inverted image of the shops on Front Street behind them.

KIAC would weatherproof small building and secure it against inappropriate uses. The proposal states that it would be “maintained, locked and unlocked on our staff to ensure appropriate usage.”

KIAC feels that the appeal of the camera obscura would be just as high in the winter as in the summer.

“The very simple but amazing and unique display of camera technology appeals to residents and visitors of all ages,” Parker said.

The advisory committee had no problem recommending that Trustee Ray Hayes approve the request, but were concerned not to preempt any decision that might be made by a later elected council, so they approved the request for a year only.

Society Gets Extension

The Dawson Humane Society has found itself in an uncomfortable situation as a result of its funding arrangements with the City of Dawson, under which the society is also the contractor for animal control in the town.

The annual contract for animal control has been $40,000, except for one year when it got to $46,000. That second figure is closer to the actual cost of service, which probably costs close to $50,000, and, as a result, the society overspent its funding from 2001 to 2003. The city advanced an additional $20, 1067.97 over that period and is now attempting to get it back.

Human Society Dawson’s Aedes Scheer was at the Sept. 21 meeting, asking for either loan forgiveness or an extended payment option, since having to pay all of that money up front would shut the society down.

Scheer argued that the money had been spent on actual services which the town needed and used and that forgiveness should be considered. The advisory committee did not accept that argument.

Failing that, the society hoped to be allowed to pay back the money over the same length of time in which they received it, three years.

The committee accepted the logic in this case, and actually extended the term of repayment to five years, arguing that the society performs a service which the town’s residents do need and that it should not be imperilled.

Garden to be Named for Gardener

The Yukon Order of Pioneers has received permission from the town administration to give a name and a plaque to one of the popular garden attractions along Front Street. A small access road leading up to a sewer and water inspection point on top of the dyke has been turned into an attractive arrangement of flowers and small shrubs over the years and has actually won laudatory comments from the Cities in Bloom competition.

It’s never had a name, though, and is known locally as Norm’s Hump, in reference to the superintendent of public works Norm Carlson, who had the original work done.

The YOOP proposal, brought to the Sept. 21 advisory council meeting, is to name the area Mary Hanulik Gardens, after the late Mrs. Hanulik, whose gardens were the talk of the town for years and even featured on the Canadian Gardener television show.

YOOP treasurer Wayne Rachel brought forward the proposal for a moderate sized bronze plaque, which would be erected next summer at no cost to the town.

The committee members were happy to recommend acceptance of the plan.