Whitehorse considers a new hire focused on energy reduction
Efforts by the City of Whitehorse to cut down on energy use could mean adding another name to payroll.
Thanks to a Climate Change Innovation Program grant from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the city would receive up to $125,000 until Feb. 28, 2021 to pay 80 per cent of the cost for a new term position of senior project technician who would focus on reducing energy use.
“The employee would undertake actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, primarily through energy use reduction,” said Mélodie Simard, the city’s manager of planning and sustainability at the council meeting April 29.
“The position is intended to implement operational energy efficiencies, oversee previously-identified capital upgrades that reduce energy use and fulfill climate change planning and monitoring tasks identified in the funding application.”
Simard said the city’s contribution for the position in 2019 would come from wages that were saved through a vacant existing senior project technician.
Council will vote on the budget amendment needed to create the position on May 6.
Time for a new bylaw truck
The City of Whitehorse could soon replace the bylaw truck that was destroyed in a March 17 collision.
Richard Graham, the city’s operations manager, has recommended the council waive the public bidding process to replace the truck after looking at what’s available locally at three dealerships.
There is one that fits the city’s criteria for the 3/4 ton vehicle that features a short box and can tow the city’s trailers that carry the department’s off-road vehicles to trails around town.
The truck costs $53,110 and would be delivered in two weeks.
At the April 29 council meeting Graham stressed the need for the truck, noting the bylaw department is operating with “less than a full complement of units available for their daily operational requirements.”
He also told council that efforts had been made to find something similar within other city departments that bylaw could use, but nothing was available that would meet the needs.
Council will vote on whether to go ahead with the purchase May 6.
City could spend more than $100,000 on new servers
A local firm could be awarded a contract worth more than $100,000 for new city servers.
Michael Reyes, Whitehorse’s manager of business and technology, brought forward a recommendation April 29 that council award the contract for the supply of new servers to Klondike Business Solutions to replace “aging and obsolete servers” at the city’s data centers.
Klondike had the lowest bid at $101,517 with the only other bid coming from a Derrick Associates and a numbered company.
Contact Stephanie Waddell at stephanie.waddell@yukon-news.com
