Moses gets an earful
Housing conditions, failed ferry services among
issues raised at MLA constituency meeting
Shawn Giilck
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, October 9, 2014
INUVIK
Inuvik Boot Lake MLA Alfred Moses has a number of issues to ponder as he returns to the legislative assembly this month.
Inuvik Boot Lake MLA Alfred Moses held a constituency meeting Oct. 1 at the Inuvik Interagency Committee building to discuss issues of concerns with local residents. - Shawn Giilck/NNSL photo
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Moses held an open house round-table constituency meeting Oct. 1 at the Inuvik Interagency building that attracted nearly a dozen people.
Various issues were presented, from housing to transportation to bullying in schools to concern over the seeming decline of the Aurora Campus in Inuvik.
Moses said he was quite happy with both the turnout and the questions. He's tried to hold such open forums before, he explained, with little success.
With the current government having only one year left in its elected term, he told attendees the time is now to bring forth their community concerns to MLAs like himself to work on.
Melissa and her mother Shirley Kisoun were some of the most talkative people in attendance.
Their main focus of concern was housing. Shirley, who said she sits on the board for the Inuvik Housing Authority, said she couldn't understand why counter-productive policies kept some units being used only for storage when there is a waiting list for people.
Melissa was highly critical of maintenance on such public housing. She cited numerous problems at her home, including persistent mold, that haven't been corrected for three years.
Moses was kept busy scribbling notes as the Kisouns kept talking.
Melissa also mentioned that she considered her backyard and exterior stairs to be unsafe for her children to play in. Once again, she was critical of the maintenance standards.
"There seems to be no money for maintenance," Shirley added.
Both Kisouns mentioned how most of the housing in Inuvik is aging, and not aging well. They suggested a large proportion of it is likely almost as old as the town, making it 40 to 50 years old, and that's something the GWNT needs to address.
The two women were also quite vocal about their concerns with Aurora College.
"I don't see a future for the college here the way they're cutting programs," Shirley said, pointing to how some of the business administration and office programs have been suspended for at least one year.
She added that she doubted the college will still be open five years from now, and noted it wasn't the first time the state of the campus had sparked concerns about closure.
Two staff members from the college were at the meeting, but offered little comment other than to confirm the changing programs.
The Personal Support Worker course is one of the few new offerings, the Kisouns added.
Melissa also talked for several minutes about bullying in the schools. She's putting together an anti-bullying night on Oct. 24, she said, to highlight the issue.
She said one of her children had been the victim of bullying for two years, and that she had not been satisfied with the response of the school officials until this year.
Moses pointed to the anti-bullying legislation passed in 2013 by MLAs as an example of how the government was taking the problem seriously.
Dave Kaufman, a businessman who operates the Beckett Business Centre with his wife Mary Beckett, was highly critical of last year's experiment trying to keep the two ferry crossings running at Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson after freezeup.
He said the intermittent service that followed due to difficulties cutting channels through the ice had a huge detrimental impact on businesses in Inuvik who held off on switching to air transport for their products based on government promises that the road would stay open.
Kaufman said many deliveries coming to Inuvik, including his, were stranded at the crossings, particularly Fort McPherson, for days at a time. Many had to turn back to Whitehorse, he added.
He told Moses that for two months in the fall he and his wife received zero commissions from their business as a Sears outlet, something that's never happened before.
Moses said he had been briefed on the situation several times by a high-ranking official in the Department of Transportation, and those discussions didn't indicate the problem was on the scale that Kaufman was describing. He said he would look into it further.
