The Safety Committee is mandated to carry out safety programs and make recommendations to the Board of Directors regarding issues related to safe practice.

City of Excellence Award

The Safety Committee maintains and oversees the BC City of Excellence Award which is awarded annually.

BC Common Ground Alliance announced the first annual City of Excellence Award in 2009, designed to recognize local governments for activities that improve ground disturbance, safe excavation techniques and best practice at or around underground infrastructure, in the year previous to the award.  Metro Vancouver received the first City of Excellence Award in 2009.

Congratulations to the City of Nanaimo for winning the 2010 City of Excellence Award.

On Monday May 16, 2011, Dave Baspaly, Executive Director of the BCCGA and Cathy Cook, Executive Director of the BC Municipal Safety Association, presented Mayor Ruttan and Council with the City of Excellence Award for 2010 (Full Press Release).

Click on this link to see the Certificate of Recognition and City of Excellence awards presented to Mayor Ruttan on May 16th, 2011 at the City Council meeting.  (You can skip past the intro and approval of agenda and minutes… it’s the first item on the agenda so pretty early in the video.  The end of the presentation is after Councillor Kipp makes a comment.)

http://www.nanaimo.ca/CouncilMeetings/VideoArchive.aspx?clip=C110516V

Congratulations to the City of Victoria for honourable mention for the 2010 City of Excellence Award.

The City of Victoria was awarded a City of Excellence Award (Honourable Mention) on May 25, 2011.

Objective:

Recognize BC City, Municipality or Regional District activities that improve ground disturbance, safe excavation techniques and best practice at/or around underground infrastructure in the year previous to the award.

Eligibility:

Any BC local government – including: City, Village, Township, District, Municipality, Regional District, First Nation communities and Tribal Councils that demonstrates and meets the criteria.

Criteria:

Primary Criteria:

• Performance – low level of incidents/ hits/ accidents

Secondary Criteria:

• Safety innovation (i.e. new practice/ activity, promotion/ educational activity and/or recognition practise)
• Educational activities (i.e. DigSafe BC! Workshops, tailgate/ site safety meetings, in-service sessions)
• Awareness of safety (internal)
• Awareness of safety (external)
• Overall safety process  – initiate, monitor, measure and correct (including contractor systems and relationships)
• Site safety program (i.e, internal check list)
• Policies and procedures in place (i.e Municipal by-law, safety manual, and/or organizational rule/ practice)
• Best practice adherence (i.e. BCCGA Best Practice Guide)
• Emergency Procedures and planning in place (i.e. evidence of an emergency plan in place) / how do you react or respond to loss of containment and/or loss of service?

Jury Selection:

• Each sponsor classification will contribute at least one representative

Selection Process:

Once a jury is selected, members will convene a process to evaluate submissions and will allocate participants to one of the three designated award categories based on the established criteria.

Award Recipients:

2009 — Metro Vancouver

2010 — City of Nanaimo