Regional Director's Report - February 11, 2008

Regional District split

Well, everyone, it looks like it is going to happen. Unless I get a last minute reply from the Ombudsman's office before Feb. 15th, the provincial government is going to have its way and make one of the stupidest moves they have made in a long time. The Comox Strathcona Regional District (CSRD) will be no more and two new RD's will be created on Feb. 15th: the Comox Valley RD (CVRD) and the Strathcona RD (SRD), one south and the other north of the Oyster River, respectively. The inaugural Board meeting of the Strathcona Regional District will be held at 3pm on Feb. 15th at the Campbell River Maritime Heritage Centre where we will elect our new Chair and Vice-Chair and be sworn in as directors. The Minister responsible for this irresponsible decision will be at the meeting. So will the media. You are welcome to attend also!

I have nothing against change. My life is full of change all of the time. However, to change something that actually works well for purely selfish, political reasons with no consultation with the people most effected... YOU.... is a real travesty. The really foolish part about this particular "change" is that the SRD will be contracting all of its work to the CVRD for the next two years which means there will really be no change at all in the workforce or structure, just the number of directors at the table. In the case of the City of Campbell River, they will now have FIVE directors instead of three. Sounds fair, eh? And in Nov. of 2008 the edict from the province will amalgamate Area H and Area G into one electoral area represented by one rural director, thus reducing the number of rural votes at the table contributing even further to the inequity.

The residents of the SRD are going to pay for this folly. You will pay more taxes and you will have less say. We (the rural directors) did everything humanly possible to stop this nonsense and it looks like the politics of a very small group won out. So, where to from here? I intend to try to make this untenable situation work to the best of my ability for your benefit. I will continue to represent your interests at the table and I may occasionally need to call on you to voice your opinion at the board table. We are going to need to work even more closely together as a community than ever before.

Regional Hospital issue

As absurd as the actions of the provincial government regarding the splitting of the CSRD, was the decision to NOT split the Regional Hospital District (CSRHD) board. They (CSRHD) are the same directors at the table as the CSRD and the reason given by the minister for the CSRD split was the "governance". This translates as meaning that certain municipal directors felt they needed even more power than they already had. So, if the directors at one board need their "governance" structure altered, why would it not follow that the other board with the same directors sitting at the table should have their 'governance" structure altered? We were told that we would be able to work together on hospital issues!

As it turns out, the directors from the Comox Valley municipalities were quite shocked that they did not get their wish for a new regional hospital in the Comox Valley. The CSRHD board met on Thursday, Feb. 7th and voted 14 to 6 against building a regional hospital and then voted to send a strong message to the provincial government and the Vancouver Island Health Authority that we want our two community hospitals maintained and upgraded immediately. This was all done before a full house crowd at the CSRD board room with every media outlet possible represented. TV, radio and print media were all in attendance for this momentous decision that has been debated and delayed for more than a year. More to follow on this one!

New web site and contact info for SRD

As of Feb. 15th the new SRD web site address will be www.strathconard.ca To contact staff (I have no idea how this will work, since the staff will be the same for the CVRD), the email addresses will be: first initial,last namestrathconard.ca (eg: jdoestrathconard.ca)

Ombudsman's complaint

As mentioned briefly above, I am still awaiting the reply from the Ombudsman's office on my complaint about the sections of the Local Government Act that were violated during this CSRD splitting process. I was told that I would hear back from them prior to the Feb. 15th deadline for the split. So hopefully by the time you read this I will have been given some positive determination from their office.

Heriot Bay sewer info

In an effort to keep everyone up to date and to avoid unnecessary rumours, I am providing the latest information that I have received from the CSRD operations department. I presented a brief overview in the last Discovery Islander. This information came in between deadlines and I would like to get it out there for people to see first hand, straight from Graeme Faris of the CSRD. His report follows:

"The regional district has begun preparing cost estimates for an advanced secondary sewerage system to serve approximately 220 parcels of land within and around Heriot Bay on Quadra Island. The system will serve approximately 400 people and will discharge up to 450 cubic metres per day of treated wastewater to a marine outfall located 20 metres below sea level east of Rebecca Spit. The proposed UV disinfected effluent will meet discharge standards normally required of tertiary treatment plants located in sensitive eco-systems such as Okanogan Lake.

Preliminary costs for the system stand at $7,600,000 as a result of construction constraints that include deep excavations in rock, DFO foreshore requirement, the need to import most construction materials from off-island and the challenges of locating the sewer collection system. Costs per property served have been calculated with and without senior government grants. The table below presents these costs. Annual operating and maintenance costs would be over and above these costs as would the cost of construction on the homeowner’s property to connect to the sewerage system.

Current estimated costs (two scenarios)
Cost / lot without grants
One time payment $34,529
Annual Property Tax (20 yrs) $3,280

Cost / lot with grants
One time payment $11,509
Annual Property Tax (20 yrs) $1,093

Next steps include additional work to fine tune and finalize costs and to allocate them, an environmental impact study with respect to the discharge of treated effluent, defining the final service area boundary, developing and delivering a communication plan to ensure that area residents have ample opportunity to comment on the plan as it develops and finally, seeking authorization from the affected residents to establish the service through either a petition or referendum process.

Interested persons can review the presentation given on the evening of January 23, 2008 at the Community Centre by visiting www.rdcs.bc.ca and selecting the tabs for "Operational Services" then "Liquid Waste" then "Heriot Bay"."

Granite Bay wharf volunteers

As I mentioned in the last issue of the DI, I have been working for some time on lining up donations for new floats at the Granite Bay Park wharf so as to not impact costs to the RD and hence, your taxes. This exercise has been very successful and we are only awaiting the final approval from a marine engineer in Campbell River so that I can get on with the shipping of the floats to Granite Bay.

In the meantime, I would like to invite any parties interested in partaking in the wonderful exercise of preparing and installing these floats to please give me a call at 285-3355 or email me at the address below. There will be some welding expertise required for a portion of the work.
Please feel free to call me on this topic at any time.

Ferry Protest anyone?

The following (in italics) is an excerpt from an email from a Denman Island resident who is trying to coordinate a coast wide day of action in various communities:

"I am about to sound out our island for interested parties to participate in our _*Day of Action*_. I envisage these "_*Days*_" to progress down the ferry ports from the Charlottes southward to culminate in Victoria on an all out _*Ferry Action*_ event corresponding to a day the legislature meets. The dates we pick should mesh with the presentation of the petitions; near or on the *_Victoria Action Day_*. If we group our areas, eg. Hornby + Denman or Rupert + Charlottes, and give a day to each group trying to make a 4 or 5 week lead-up, the press etc. can have the dates for each place and action and it will build momentum. Each locale will be responsible to organize for only one date. Also the public will begin to look forward to our action each week. For instance, Saturday or Sunday 4 weeks in a row with a finale by the Victoria group at the legislature. This way no one of us has too great a burden yet this series of events will stay in the media beyond the usual one-off demonstration.
If this seems basically like a good and doable idea, we need to settle on specific dates which should mesh with the presentation of the petitions on or near the _*Victoria Action Day*_. I am counting on our usual island inventiveness to give the media a show they will want to cover. Below is a very first stab at dates to give the idea. ( Might group top two together and divide March 8 in two parts)

Feb. 16 Charlottes and Prince Rupert
Feb. 23 Port Hardy and Port McNeill
March 1 Campbell River, Comox, Quadra, Cortes, Denman and Hornby
March 8 Nanaimo, Chemenus, Mill Bay, Southern Gulf Islands
Week of March 10 - 14 (one day) Victoria Action Day"

I think this is a good method of protest and will not take too much effort on each community but will get the point across to the government that we are fed up with rising prices. We (Quadra / Cortes) have taken on the majority of the burden for organizing the protests of the past and it is good to see someone else stepping up to the plate!

Over 1200 signatures have been collected on Quadra and maybe part of our local protest could be a "delivery" of the petitions to our MLA's office in Campbell River (for presentation in the Legislature) with all the usual "protest fanfare" and media attention, of course!

Anyone interested in organizing such an event or working on it could contact me for further information, but an "organizer" is definitely needed for this event, and soon.

I think that is about it for this issue. There are other initiatives under way, but they can wait for the next report.
Feel free to call me between the hours of 8:30 am and 7:00 pm, Monday through Friday (not on weekends, folks!) at 285-3355, or you can fax me at 285-3533 or you can email me anytime at abramfamoberon.ark.com , or by mail at Box 278 in the Cove, V0P 1N0... Lots of choices!

Respectfully submitted,

Jim Abram
Director, Discovery Islands - Mainland Inlets (Area J), CSRD (title change on Feb. 15)