Revelstoke City Council has received a list of recommendations from the Revelstoke Tourism Infrastructure Committee that approves funding for several new and existing projects. For reasons explained below, it's likely these projects will receive approval from council at their Mar. 25 meeting.
The projects are:
—$50,000 to the Revelstoke Arts Council for start-up costs for two music festivals. The proposal calls for the hiring of former Salmon Arm Roots and Blues festival organizer Hugo Rampen to start two festivals per year in Revelstoke starting in September of 2015.
—$70,000 to the Revelstoke Nordic Ski Club to fund lighting on the trails at the Macpherson Nordic complex. The club is proposing lighting on a portion of the Main Loop trail, the Mickey Olson Loop trail and the Dynamite ski trail, allowing for longer hours of operation.
—$15,000 to the B.C. Interior Forestry Museum for a viewing deck at the museum. The viewing platform is designed to improve the view across the Columbia River towards the Revelstoke Dam.
—$20,000 for additional trail-building at the Revy Riders dirt-biking facility on Westside Road. The plan is to complete the expert trail and work on a beginner trail.
—$20,000 for the Revelstoke Cycling Association for trail maintenance in 2014. The cycling association's request was for $115,000 for several projects, of which they received an OK for $20,000.
—$12,800 to Revelstoke Mountain Resort for a study of a proposed trail around Williamson's Lake. The proposal calls for a 6.1-kilometre trail around the lake that will connect to Camozzi Road. The proposal outlines all the necessary steps in a riparian study.
—$80,000 to the City of Revelstoke for improvements on Nichol Road between Airport Way and Park Drive. The city is proposing to build an all-season, shared, three-metre wide pedestrian and bicycle lane on Nichol Road that will mitigate traffic issues created because the road is the main access to Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
—The City of Revelstoke's application for $30,000 for upgrades to the exterior of Revelstoke City Hall's Second Street entrance earned an asterisk from the committee. No funding was approved. Instead, the tourism infrastructure committee asked that the proposal be referred to the city's committee process. At this point, it's unclear how this application will proceed.
Projects' approval is likely
The recommendations were released in a council agenda on Mar. 25, and follow the meeting of the Revelstoke Tourism Infrastructure Advisory Committee last week.
The funding derives from Revelstoke's status as a B.C. Resort Municipality. It's an agreement between the province, the municipality and tourism stakeholders that creates a special tax on accommodations in Revelstoke. Money collected is put into a fund earmarked for tourism infrastructure projects. It's not a City of Revelstoke fund; although council does have final input, they have historically gone along with the tourism committee's recommendations.