Council wants input from people with lived experience before signing off on terms of reference for an accessibility advisory committee.

Staff suggests the committee has at least four people with disabilities, or individuals who support or are from organizations supporting people with disabilities - one indigenous member and two from the community.

Several councillors feel that there also needs to be council representation.

鈥淭his committee alone is impacting five of six council priorities,鈥� said Coun. Gord Lovegrove. 鈥淲e need to step up and provide input on this.鈥�

Coun. Loyal Wooldridge was not in complete agreement.

鈥淚 ponder if that鈥檚 the right place for council,鈥� he said.

Wooldridge made a motion to defer a decision until more input is gathered and consider the addition of a councillor.

鈥淚 think there鈥檚 something really good here, but I hesitate putting our stamp on it and establishing it now and not getting input from people with lived experience.鈥�

Staff informed council that it can make additions to the committee at a later date.

The committee needs to be in place by Sept. 1, as per provincial requirements.

Later in the meeting, Coun. Ron Cannan raised the issue of people who cannot get to the top of Knox Mountain due to a disability.

鈥淲e have disabled parking passes, there might be some provision to monitor so that it鈥檚 not everybody that goes up there, but for those that aren鈥檛 able to get the experience.鈥�

Staff will put together a report on the matter when it was before previous councils

In March 2022 council endorsed a two-year multi-modal trial allowing vehicle access to the lower lookout on Knox Mountain Drive from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

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