Charging station finds a home
Daajing Giids council finally found a home for a Level 2 charging station in the village.
The station will go on the north side of 3221 Wharf Street, just east of the Isabel Creek Store. That spot has enough room for one, possibly two parking stalls to charge electric or hybrid vehicles.
An engineer with the Charge North program confirmed the site has ample power. A new power pole may be needed, but crews won’t have to dig up the road and lay underground cable as they would in other places.
“The location is perfect,” said Village of Daajing Giids CAO Mike Drake, speaking at a Sept. 4 council meeting. Mayor Lisa Pineault said she spoke about the plan with the owner of the neighbouring property.
Wharf Street is set to be redesigned as a one-way street this spring. One-way traffic will go eastwards in a lane along the south side of the street. Parking will be available on the north side.
The Village of Daajing Giids has considered several places for a Level 2 charger since Charge North announced full grant funding for one in 2019.
Council looked at installing one by Spirit Square, the visitor info centre, the former hospital site or the Ministry of Forests bunkhouse, but all the other sites were complicated by electrical or jurisdictional issues.
Councillor Jesse Embree joked it was embarrassing to see that Charge North installed a Level 2 charger at the tiny Tow Hill Road community kiosk before Daajing Giids got one, but learned the Tow Hill one isn’t quite working yet because of a data network issue.
Charge North, a non-profit, has helped install Level 2 chargers in over 40 communities across northern B.C.
Slow lanes
Daajing Giids council has dropped the speed limit on village laneways from 50 to 20 km/h.
Staff will soon install 20 km/h speed-limit signs along the village laneways, including the various lanes between 2nd and 3rd Avenue and the one off 1st Street.
Prompted by a concerned resident, Daajing Giids councillors voted unanimously on Sept. 4 to adopt a new bylaw to drop the speed limit on laneways. The bylaw passed first and second reading in July.
The new speed signs will stay bagged until the bylaw takes effect.
Crushing it on derelict vehicle clean-ups
Anyone in Daajing Giids with a derelict car or truck in the yard can sign up with the village to get rid of it.
Owners can expect to pay about $250 per vehicle to get it towed, crushed and taken to a better place off-island.
Village of Daajing Giids staff will register vehicles and take payments for the clean-up program. The village is also helping keep the cost low by contributing $5,000 toward the project.
The funding will help cover the cost of staging a car-crusher in town, and the cost to scrap vehicles that were abandoned on the side of village roads.
“I think it’s a great program,” said Mayor Lisa Pineault, shortly after council voted to fund and administer the project at their Sept. 4 meeting.
Kristoff Trucking will crush and dispose of the vehicles, while Charlotte Island Tires will handle towing.
The Daajing Giids clean-up is piggy-backing on a similar project that started earlier this month in Sandspit.
Sandspit residents were able to get derelict vehicles crushed and towed for free — the North Coast Regional District is running the clean-up using surplus budget funds.
Abandoned vehicles have long been a headache in Daajing Giids. Last summer, staff counted about a dozen left on village rights of way. Several were dumped in front of private properties.
People can report abandoned vehicles to village staff, who can identify owners using license plates and vehicle identification numbers. But owners often move without a forwarding address.