The Smithers noon siren will continue sounding in the community to mark the hour.
At tonight’s (Tuesday) town council meeting, a report to have the United Church bell take its place was discussed.
According to the report from Fire Chief Alle Jan de Vries, the fire department received a proposal to have the bell in the church’s building donated to the town.
“I know the siren has been contentious on both side in the past so I wanted to bring this forward and see if we were interested first before going down any road,” said de Vries.
The siren was installed to communicate if a fire had occurred in town and signal firefighters to respond.
Councillor Genevieve Paterson asked if there was a way to communicate an emergency outside Voyent Alert should the internet go down.
“We have had some communication issues with our fibre optic going down in the past where we were close to using the siren because there was a structure fire that day,” the fire chief said.
No motion was put on the table with the report but Councillors Calvin Elliot, Laura Leonard, Sam Raven, Frank Wray, and John Buikema voiced they would prefer to not go ahead with the donation.
One concern shared between Leonard and Raven was staff capacity to take on the project.
“I have sat in this seat long enough to know these things have the potential to balloon. I’m thinking about structural upgrades depending on weight and size and costs for implementation,” said Raven.
“I know that bell is part of our town’s history and I know there’s enough creative people in this community there may be some other way of putting that bell to use,” said Buikema.
Paterson had also voiced some issues with the noon siren she’s experienced living in the community.
“My son naps every day at noon and wakes up at noon because of the siren so that made me think about everyone at the hospital who are struggling to sleep,” she said.
Another point shared was her first experience hearing the siren after moving from Victoria and being panicked thinking there was an emergency.
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