The Three Amigos are hitting the road again.
Next month, the mayors of Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody will reprise their Town Haul journey to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) convention.
This year's RV trip will be much shorter than last year's inaugural edition three days to Edmonton.
In 2014, Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart, PoCo Mayor Greg Moore and PoMo Mayor Mike Clay spent 11 days on the road en route to the FCM in Niagara Falls, visiting their counterparts along the way to share experiences and info on running local governments.
This year, the trio is set to leave June 3 from the Tri-Cities, with their first stop in Burnaby for 9 a.m. There, they will meet with Burnaby Coun. Sam Dhaliwal, president of the Union of BC Municipalities. Afterward, they will motor to Chilliwack, Ashcroft and the Cariboo regional district, staying overnight in 100 Mile House where, on Day 2, they will interview that municipality's mayor in the morning before they hit Williams Lake, Dawson Creek and Fort St. John. Their third day will involve talking to officials in Fort St. John about resource industries as well as Alberta stops in Grand Prairie and Slave Lake before arriving in Edmonton for the national conference on June 5.
Moore, who is also Metro Vancouver's board chair, told The Tri-City News on Thursday the local mayors are working out the details for Town Haul 2.0 and are in need of sponsors for the vehicle rental fee, gas and internet connections (Fraserway RV, from which they are renting a motor home, is picking up the kilometre charges).
The cost won't be as high as last year, when they travelled across five provinces.
"Last time, they were really long marathon days," Moore said. "We started at 7 in the morning and we would get to our destination around 11 at night, with five stops in between. We did that seven days in a row. This time, we have a two-and-a-half day period."
The theme for this year's adventure will be exploring the connection between urban and rural communities in B.C.
"We have a lot of conversations in the Metro Vancouver area about how important resources are to us," Moore said. "We see a lot of trains come through all three of our communities holding a lot of resources, so now we're going to meet the communities that are at the front end of that resource.
"What are their challenges around resource development? We want to share with them the challenges we go through on our end so there's a better connection between urban and rural communities in our province," Moore said.
Along the way, the trio will snap photos, film videos and post blog entries on the Town Haul website (townhaul.ca.). You can also follow them on Twitter @townhaulcanada, Instagram @townhaulcanada and the YouTube channel townhaulcanada.
@jwarrenTC
