The Week: Misinformation campaign sullies Comox by-election featuring four good candidates

The Week: Misinformation campaign sullies Comox by-election featuring four good candidates

by | Nov 23, 2021

This election could go either way  |  George Le Masurier photo

The Week: Misinformation campaign sullies Comox by-election featuring four good candidates

By

Decafnation has covered elections for public office on both sides of the US and Canadian border, from local council positions up to gubernatorial and US Senate races in the state of Washington. And we have learned that one of the realities of any election is that the higher the stakes, the nastier the campaign.

Based on that, it appears that some people think there’s something at stake in the race for an open seat on the Comox Town Council, which voters will decide this Saturday, Nov. 27. 

Here’s what’s going on. Someone or several people have spread a number of unfounded rumors over the past several weeks designed to hurt candidate Dr. Jonathan Kerr at the polls.

It’s difficult to identify the people spreading misinformation because it usually happens in conversations on the doorstep or in coffee shops and pubs. But it’s clear that whoever has started or is spreading the allegations doesn’t want Kerr to get elected.

Why? Probably because the negative campaigners worry that the control of the Comox Town Council is at stake.

Kerr is a progressive candidate who has been endorsed by three sitting council members and, if those four votes coalesced on important issues, that threatens the stranglehold on power held by the old guard of Russ Arnott, Maureen Swift and Ken Grant.

It’s uncertain whether Steve Blacklock, the other frontrunner in this election, shares values with the old guard or the younger progressive population growing in the town. He may well march and vote to his own beat.

But to those afraid of losing power in Comox, it is Kerr who must be defeated at all costs.

The allegations directed at Kerr by themselves aren’t that serious. Some are actually petty. But that’s not the point of negative campaigning. Spreading false information undermines the targeted candidate so that anyone uncertain about who to support will be less likely to vote for that candidate.

So what are the dishonesties being spread in this campaign?

Kerr has been accused of taking false credit for the recruitment of four new physicians to the medical clinic in Comox where he practices family medicine. Even people who have endorsed Blacklock have repeated this deceit.

But Decafnation contacted one of the owners of Sea Cove Medical Clinic who confirmed that Dr. Kerr did indeed recruit the four new doctors.

“Jonathan is our clinic lead and has been very effective in that role. He was lead recruiter of four new doctors to our clinic. Working with our clinic manager, he was the voice of the clinic … we couldn’t have done it without him,” Dr. Carol Ostry told Decafnation via email.

It has also been insinuated that Kerr would use Comox Council as a stepping stone to running for provincial or federal offices. But this charge appears baseless. Decafnation could not find any evidence that Kerr has ever shown interest in higher-level politics, and he denies it now.

Of course, jumping from local government to the provincial Legislature is not uncommon in the Comox Valley. Among those who’ve made that leap are Social Credit Stan Hagen, BC Liberal Don McRae and current MLA Ronna Rae-Leonard of the NDP. And ex Comox Mayor Paul Ives unsuccessfully sought the provincial nomination from the BC Liberal Party while serving on the council.

The latest untruth surfaced this week when a Comox resident contacted Kerr to ask if it was true that he was “pushing for a ban on residential, outdoor Christmas lights.” The person had heard the allegation from a neighbor who said it came from “someone associated with” Blacklock.

Kerr says it’s a ridiculous fib. He told Decafnation that anyone who knows him also knows that he “loves Christmas lights.”

Some of the negative campaigning might be the work of members of an anonymous group called Concerned Comox Valley Citizens who placed an attack ad in the Comox Valley Record alleging that Kerr would bring provincial party politics to local government. (Decaf note: When you send an email to the address they provide, you get no response.)

Aside from the unscrupulous aspect of an anonymous attack ad, the effect of introducing party politics at the local government level is a reasonable campaign debate point.

The Kerr campaign made itself vulnerable on this issue when a group of his supporters decided to call themselves the Comox Greens. That was a poor decision because it suggests a provincial party affiliation, whether or not it was intentional.

Kerr defends aligning himself with the Comox Greens because he says the 50-plus members are merely local citizens who share what’s known globally as the six “green values.” And, he says, there are members of the NDP, the federal Liberal Party and others among his supporters.

But that might not convince people who see the color of his signs and the inclusion of “Comox Greens” on his campaign material as a direct Green Party link.

Candidates can’t control all of the people who support them, so sometimes overzealous campaigners say things they know aren’t true or that they haven’t bothered to question.

And sometimes they do it for nefarious motives.

In any case, mudslinging and spreading false information have no place in local politics. It reeks of desperation and it’s really election bullying.

Decafnation contacted Blacklock this week about the attacks on Kerr. He told us that the allegations about his opponent “sound ridiculous to me,” and he vehemently denied any involvement in them. He said he doesn’t condone negative campaign tactics and would tell his supporters not to engage in them as well.

 

IN OTHER ELECTION NEWS

— Decafnation asked each of the candidates about their vaccination status. Blacklock, Kerr and  Don Davis said they were fully vaccinated. Judy Johnson declined to comment on her vaccination status.

— The two frontrunner candidates, Kerr and Blacklock, have diverse opinions on a proposed bylaw change about urban agriculture and allowing backyard chickens in particular. Kerr and the other two candidates, Don Davis and Judy Johnson, all support the proposed bylaw change. Blacklock opposes it.

— Advance polling numbers indicate that voter turnout might be strong. Fewer people normally vote in by-elections than in general elections. But on the first day of advance voting last week, 412 people cast ballots. That compares with 390 on the first day of advance voting in the 2018 general municipal election.

This article has been updated to correct Judy Johnson’s vaccination status.

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The Week: Take our local government survey!

Are you satisfied with the performance of your Comox Valley elected officials? In 20 months and three weeks, voters will go to the polls again. So we’re curious how Decafnation readers feel about their councillors, mayors, directors and school trustees halfway through their current terms in office

The Week: Comox Council again cancels court dates to resolve Mack Laing obligation

The Week: Comox Council again cancels court dates to resolve Mack Laing obligation

by | Nov 15, 2021

 What was once meant to grow straight and true can, over time, become rather twisted |  George Le Masurier photo

The Week: Comox Council again cancels court dates to resolve Mack Laing obligation

By

Today should have been the first day of the week that finally brought resolution to the Town of Comox’s shameful abdication of its moral covenant to the late Hamilton Mack Laing.

But if you hoped that the BC Supreme Court hearing scheduled for this week (Nov. 15-18) would bring an end to the 39-year-old saga over Laing’s Trust and the future use of his heritage home, Shakesides, you will be disappointed. Again.

This is the Town of Comox, after all, where things often get messy.

It’s head-shaking, but not surprising, that the town has backed out of the latest trial dates it had scheduled to petition the BC Supreme Court for approval to alter the Mack Laing Trust Agreement. The town wants to tear down Laing’s historic homestead and use the considerable funds he left to the town for other purposes.

Five years ago, the town was in a mad rush to get to the BC Supreme Court and plead its case. But since then, the town has scheduled and canceled court dates multiple times.

Read all of our stories about the Mack Laing Trust Agreement

And now, despite the feverish pitch reached in 2019 — and the estimated $200,000 plus that it has spent on legal fees — the town still seems confused about whether to go to court or not.

The town spent most of the time from February 2017 to May 2019 trying unsuccessfully to convince two different Supreme Court Justices not to allow the Mack Laing Heritage Society to present opposing evidence at trial.

But when the town finally set a trial date for June of 2019, they canceled it at the last minute (in May). And then the town went dark for the next 31 months.

This year the town decided to revive its application to alter Laing’s Trust and asked the court to set aside four days for a trial that would have started today.

But, like a skipping record, the town council once again canceled these dates at the last minute and then hinted it might revisit its application in the new year.

 

WHY CAN’T THE TOWN MAKE UP ITS MIND?

So, what is going on with this Town Council? Why do they schedule court dates and then cancel them? Why does the town continue to incur high-priced fees charged by a Vancouver lawyer when the council is apparently undecided about what to do?

Comox voters and taxpayers have no way to get answers to these questions because the council only discusses the matter behind closed doors. Ever since the town took its three-year hiatus on this issue, all Mack Laing discussions have been held in-camera.

That means if you ask a Comox council member what’s going on with the Mack Laing court petition, they will tell you they can’t talk about matters discussed in-camera.

That’s an odd position for the town to take.

When the mayor and council were in a rush to get a court hearing prior to May 2019, the council discussed the matter openly in regular council meetings. Motions were debated and votes were taken.

The council even held a special open public meeting at the Comox Rec Centre on the topic just a month (April 2019) before putting it all on ice for nearly three years.

So now, the council refuses to talk in public about even the simplest details related to the case, such as why they schedule court dates and then cancel them or whether the town even has a plan to resolve the matter?

The council’s lack of transparency is disconcerting. Its indecision is stunning.

With every misstep, the town worsens its culpability over 39 years for not living up to the agreement it signed with Hamilton Mack Laing. The town took his money and his property but failed to live up to their end of the bargain.

It’s a shameful way to treat one of the town’s most notable and generous citizens. And their actions certainly won’t encourage any future citizen to leave anything in trust to this town.

The issue has also divided people in the community, another of the regrettable results of this debacle.

 

SO WHAT’S THE SOLUTION?

It’s simple. Go to court. Get a decision and move on. If the town fears the court will reject its application to alter the Laing Trust, then initiate some form of arbitration.

Or maybe both parties could find a way to compromise. For example, the Comox Valley Regional District provides a good model with Brian and Sarah McLoughlin Park. The McLoughlin’s former house is open for artists-in-residence from May through September.

Restoring and opening Shakesides for a similar program — perhaps with priority given to natural scientists — would avoid the problems of parking that concern the park’s neighbors. And it would come closer to Laing’s vision for his historic home on Comox Bay than another unused and unnecessary ‘viewing platform’

Whatever it decides, the Town of Comox should quit stalling and start being honest and open with the public.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO WAS HAMILTON MACK LAING?

Hamilton Mack Laing was an important Canadian naturalist, photographer and writer. His research has appeared in a variety of publications around the world. Laing moved to Comox in 1922, cleared his land and built his home from a “Stanhope” Aladdin Ready-Cut kit. In 1927, he married Ethel Hart of Portland and they established a successful and commercial orchard which included walnut, pecan, filbert, hazelnut, apple and plum trees. They also grew mushrooms and vegetables.

After his wife died in 1944, Laing sold his original home, Baybrook, and built a new home, Shakesides, on the adjoining lot. On his death in 1982, Laing bequeathed the waterfront property, a sizable amount of money, artwork and other personal property to the Town of Comox according to a Trust Agreement between the parties.

In 2016, the Comox Council, led by then-mayor Paul Ives, attempted to demolish Shakesides but was stopped by the BC Attorney General. Instead, the town demolished Laing’s former home, Baybrook, and began the process to alter the LaingTrust Agreement to permit the demolition of Shakesides and to use Laing’s money for other purposes.

Over the past five years, the town, led by current Mayor Russ Arnott, has appeared in several BC Supreme Court hearings to argue unsuccessfully that the Mack Laing Heritage Society should not be allowed to present any evidence that opposes the town’s application to alter the Laing Trust. Since then the town has scheduled and canceled multiple trial dates.

The Mack Laing Heritage Society believes the town has mishandled Laing’s Trust and misappropriated funds attached to the trust.

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THE WEEK: 5 things wrong with how Comox tried to hide sewage spill information

THE WEEK: 5 things wrong with how Comox tried to hide sewage spill information

by | Oct 7, 2021

Brooklyn Creek below the Noel Avenue culverts — as it looked after the sewage spill clean-up  |  George Le Masurier photo

THE WEEK: 5 things wrong with how Comox tried to hide sewage spill information

By

There’s something fishy going on in the Town of Comox.

Here’s the story in a nutshell: Two pieces of the town’s infrastructure failed and some undetermined amount of raw sewage spilled into Brooklyn Creek for some undetermined length of time. Then, on the afternoon of Sept. 3 (a long Labor Day weekend) the town marshaled an “army” of workers and heavy equipment to dredge out tonnes of accumulated muddy silt and vegetation immediately below the Noel Avenue culverts.

When Decafnation discovered the spill — thanks to several alert readers — we published a commentary on Friday, Sept. 24 asking why the town, including the mayor and councillors, hadn’t informed the public of such a concerning situation.

The very next day, Saturday, Sept. 25, the town — which up to this time had not even publicly acknowledged the sewage spill — issued a news release that implied the incident was no big deal, just a “small leak” that was found and all fixed up in the same day.

And, oh, by the way, said the news release, the mayor and council never knew anything about any of this.

What?

 

FIVE THINGS WRONG

First, as you will see, the facts are that the town did not “discover” raw sewage in the creek. They were told about it.

Second, there is no such thing as a “small leak” of raw sewage into public waterways. It’s always a big deal.

Third, when lumps of human excrement and toilet paper float down a creek, there are obvious public health risks. Dogs regularly drink from the creek. Children have been known to play there. To say otherwise — and the town is not qualified to make such an assessment — is misinformation.

Fourth, the town clearly hoped to hide the sewage leak from the public. When it could not hide it any longer, their communications were so confusing that it couldn’t even get it right about the amount of contaminated soil removed from the creek during the clean-up operations.

And, finally, this is accumulated soil that Brook Place condo residents had complained about to the town starting in February and were told not to worry — including by a letter from Mayor Russ Arnott just a week before that same soil turned out to be, in fact, a problem.

It’s hard to know where to start unpacking all of this. But let’s just start by setting a few facts straight.

 

THE TOWN DID NOT DISCOVER THE PROBLEM

We don’t know who wrote this news release, but we can assume that at least the mayor was involved along with CAO Jordan Wall and most likely the town’s Communications Coordinator Lara Greasley. Public Works Engineer Shelley Ashfield may have also contributed.

The release starts off, “On September 3, Town Staff discovered a small sanitary leak ….”

But the town actually knew about the sewage leak a day earlier on Sept. 2 when staff members of Current Environmental, who were doing field work as part of an independent fish habitat study in partnership with DFO, the Pacific Salmon Foundation and the provincial government observed raw sewage solids and low dissolved oxygen levels in the creek below Noel Avenue. They reported their observations to DFO, PEP and the Town of Comox.

Rupert Wong, a principal of Current Environmental, then gave the town technical advice about how to proceed with source control, spill clean up and remediation, which began on Sept. 3

Town staff didn’t “discover” that sewage was spilling into the creek, but they did subsequently find the source of the leak.

 

HOW MUCH SOIL WAS REMOVED?

The news release didn’t say that a major amount of sewage-contaminated mud and plant growth was removed from below the Noel Avenue culverts, but CAO Jordan Wall said in a follow-up email to Decafnation that 38 cubic meters were taken out.

But Brook Place residents say they witnessed 15 dump truck loads being removed, which they estimated at 180 tonnes.

So Decafnation asked Wong to clarify the number. Wong told us that his staff’s timesheets show that on Sept. 3 vacuum trucks removed 73 cubic meters and excavators dug out a further 38 cubic meters, or 111 cubic meters in total. Depending on the density of each load, that converts to more or less 200 tonnes of material. The timesheets also show that an additional 18 cubic meters was removed on Sept. 7.

 

NO PUBLIC HEALTH CONCERN?

The town’s new release says the creek’s “water was tested and no health risks to the public were identified.” This is misleading.

The water was tested, but only after the clean-up was completed when, if the crews had done their job well, the test should have shown acceptable water quality. There was no test before the clean-up.

Certainly, the public was at some level of risk during the undetermined time that raw sewage was leaking into the creek.

It’s possible that the cracks in sewage and stormwater pipes that transferred sewage into Brooklyn Creek did not suddenly bust wide open. It’s likely that they started as small cracks, perhaps just allowing a trickle to leak downstream, and that over time the cracks grew larger and larger until on or before Sept. 2, whole lumps of human excrement and toilet paper were seen floating in the creek.

When did fecal coliform levels reach the point where a public health risk existed? No one can say for sure. But the town was in no position to say on Sept. 25 that no public health risk ever occurred.

And it appears that our local health authorities were not informed about the sewage spill, although that’s not necessarily unusual, according to Wong.

“When we report spills to PEP, it is like a triage center that processes, evaluates and refers the incident to other agencies,” he told Decafnation via email. “We do not know what other agencies PEP would have referred. In our experience, the health authority will be part of the referral list if there are potentially affected water licenses.”

Wong says that preliminary bacteriological lab results showed the cleanup was effective in bringing fecal coliform levels down, but that the final lab results are not yet in. They are still waiting on lab results for other water quality parameters that will hopefully help delineate non-human fecal coliform sources.

The Town of Comox does not regularly test waters in Brooklyn Creek or any of its waterways despite being advised to do so in several past consulting engineer’s recommendations.

 

WHO KNEW WHAT, WHEN?

The basis of this matter is that a raw sewage leak into Brooklyn Creek was discovered and has been fixed. Stuff happens.

But the most disturbing aspect of this story is that the Town of Comox tried to hide this information from the public and, it appears, also from our elected mayor and councillors.

The public should have been informed right away.

But what about the mayor and councillors? What did they know and when did they know it?

It’s hard to believe that the town’s CAO didn’t at least inform Mayor Arnott on Sept. 2 or 3. But let’s assume the news release is accurate. The mayor and council didn’t know. In the corporate world, not reporting up about something this serious that has high negative public relations potential would trigger major consequences.

So what have the mayor and council done to ally public concerns or clarify information since the sewage spill became public? So far, it appears they’ve done nothing beyond writing a news release.

There was no public discussion of the matter last night at the council’s first regular meeting since Sept. 25. There was a special council meeting called for Sept. 22 where they might have discussed it, but that meeting was held entirely in-camera.

And from what we’ve seen on social media, councillors have only referred people to the town’s news release. Publicly speaking, no council member has expressed outrage. No council member has shared their thoughts about how to prevent such a spill from happening again or how to catch it sooner. No call has been made for regular water testing.

No councillor has expressed concern about what effect such a sewage spill might have on fish in the creek.

The Town Council apparently feels that issuing a news release is all the information Comox residents deserve or need to know from their elected officials.

 

CITIZEN CONCERNS IGNORED

And, finally, the residents of Brook Place, the condominium buildings adjacent to the Noel Avenue culverts, have a justifiable complaint with the mayor and town councillors.

Over the past nine months, the Brook Place strata council has complained more than once about the accumulation of silt below the culverts installed in 2019. They feared the build-up of stinky mud and extraordinary plant growth might pose a threat to their buildings.

The town administration, the mayor and council ignored these concerns.

A week before the town dispatched employees and heavy equipment to remove that stinky, contaminated soil and vegetation, Mayor Arnott wrote the Brook Place residents to say that he had concluded there was no problem with the culverts and offered to take no action to help.

But anyone looking at the photographs of the section of Brooklyn Creek below the culverts prior to and after Sept. 3 can see that something unusual was happening. It should have been more thoroughly investigated.

 

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Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

by | Sep 24, 2021

Turbidity in Brooklyn Creek, with stormwater pipe creating a “waterfall” in the background. Kids sometimes play under this  |  Photos submitted by a Como resident

Town of Comox spills raw sewage into Brooklyn Creek, doesn’t inform public

By

Five months ago, I decided to take a break from publishing stories on Decafnation. It was a difficult decision because I enjoy journalism and there is such a dearth of enterprise reporting in the Comox Valley.

Several news events during this past half-year have tempted me to revive my regular reporting and commentary: Daniel Arbour’s bold and forward-thinking proposal about a future with fewer fossil fuel-powered vehicles and the recent federal election come to mind.

But today I stumbled onto a story that I couldn’t resist because it involves the ongoing degradation of local waterways by a municipality and a cadre of council members who chose to hide pertinent information from their constituents.

The story involves a major pollution event with potential public health concerns in the Town of Comox about which the public has not been informed.

One of the town’s sewage pipes recently broke and an unknown volume of raw sewage spilled into Brooklyn Creek, which flows through  Mack Laing Park and empties into the Comox Harbour. That created a health hazard for any children playing in the creek and at the creek’s Comox Bay estuary, and a potential lingering toxic environment for any returning fish this fall.

It also contributes to the contamination of shellfish in Comox Bay, which is under an ongoing harvesting ban.

None of the council members or town staff have discussed this sewage spill publicly or informed town residents. We couldn’t find any notice on the town’s website. And, of course, you won’t have read about it in any of the local media.

Decafnation reached out late afternoon Friday to Town Engineer Shelley Ashfield via email, who has not yet responded. We will update this story when and if Ashfield responds to our questions.

We asked Ashfield when and where the sewage break occurred and how the raw sewage could have flowed into Brooklyn Creek.

And it gets worse. On Thursday, the creek turned a milky brown color from somewhere south of Guthrie Road and covered the length of the creek to Comox Harbour. It appears, though this is not yet confirmed, that during mitigation measures following the raw sewage spill, the town dumped loads of gravel into the creek, stirring up sediment at the creek’s bottom and creating turbidity that took a long time to clear.

This also poses potential problems for wildlife.

We learned from a Comox resident that Kira Gallant of Environment Canada has an open file on issues regarding Brooklyn Creek and the Town of Comox. And that Dave Pridham, an officer with the BC Environment Ministry, is investigating both the raw sewage spill and the turbidity issue.

Decafnation has also learned that Brooklyn Creek Streamkeepers discovered dozens of dead salmon smolts along the waterway’s banks this summer. That could be linked to the fact the town discharges multiple stormwater drainage pipes into the creek, which diminishes its water quality, and also as a result of this summer’s heat domes created by climate change.

Suspected poor water quality in the creek has nearly wiped out healthy fish spawns in the creek in recent times. The creek’s headwaters begin in Courtenay, primarily Crown Isle, and pass through Area B en route to Comox, which creates a three-jurisdiction regulatory process. None of the three levels of government monitor the creek’s water quality.

The recent incident reinforces long-time concerns about the Town of Comox’s stormwater management practices. Decafnation published an intensive series of stories on this and related issues two years ago.

The town had ample warning that such a disaster could occur. But the town has ignored recommendations from multiple engineering consultants dating back more than two decades to upgrade its stormwater practices, including the building of detention ponds to filter toxic runoff before it enters sensitive waterways and regular collection of water quality data.

There is a pending BC Supreme Court case about the town’s handling of stormwater scheduled to begin next spring.

But Comox residents might question their elected council members why they didn’t inform the public about the raw sewage spill into the creek? Did they even know about the spill? If not, then who is providing oversight of town operations?

Some people believe the Town Council of Comox is the least transparent of all Comox Valley municipalities. You might think that council members heading into municipal elections in 2022 would be trying to change this perception.

This story has been updated to correct an error that Brooklyn Creek travels through Macdonald Wood Park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMOX TOWN COUNCIL

Russ Arnott, Mayor: rarnott@comox.ca

Alex Bissinger: abissinger@comox.ca

Nicole Minions: nminions@comox.ca

Ken Grant: kgrant@comox.ca

Maureen Swift: mswift@comox.ca

Stephanie McGowan: smcgowan@comox.ca

 

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Our Earth Day announcement: forgoing journalism to spend more time with family, nature

Our Earth Day announcement: forgoing journalism to spend more time with family, nature

by | Apr 21, 2021

Earth Day 2021 — It’s time to wake up and smell the flowers  |  George Le Masurier photo

Our Earth Day announcement: forgoing journalism to spend more time with family, nature

By

Today is Earth Day. It’s a fitting time to explain the recent absence of new journalism projects on Decafnation and what to expect in the future.

For the past two months, I’ve been planting trees — 50 of them to be exact. Most are Cypress Leylandii that will provide a border of sorts for a small, natural forested area on our property that we’re trying to keep intact. But the list also includes apple and pear trees and other coniferous varieties, some bamboo and evergreen shrubs.

I’ve found this work pleasantly satisfying on many levels, and it has not left room for journalism. Doing the research for an in-depth series of articles is time-consuming and I never aspired for Decafnation to become a full-time endeavour. But the need for quality reporting here has been that dire.

Since 2016, Decafnation has tried to add some depth to the paper-thin reporting in the local Comox Valley newspaper and radio stations. We’ve focused our attention on stories like the seriously flawed 2014-15 plan to patch the sewer pipes serving mainly Courtenay and Comox and how local governments have and are still failing to address the negative effects of dumping toxic stormwater into our waterways.

We uncovered the botched planning of the new Comox Valley Hospital and the ongoing travesty of the Vancouver Island Health Authority’s myopic plan to reduce onsite health care services in the North Island.

We shone a bright light on the out-of-control Economic Development Society.

We went deep during the 2018 local government elections and endorsed progressive candidates that brought noticeable change to Courtenay, the regional district and Cumberland, but not to Comox.

We have championed a call for the Town of Comox to reconcile its moral and legal obligations to their trust agreement with Hamilton Mack Laing. We explored the need for improved sexual health education in District 71 schools. And we’ve written about interesting people such as Father Charles Brandt, Dr Jonathan Page and more.

But we won’t be doing those types of stories any more.

During this last year, we’ve abided by the provincial health orders to stay home and that has meant not seeing our children or grandchildren. This has created not just a longing for family, but also the realization that being well into the seventh decade of life, our time is short. How to use what’s left of it has become a priority.

We will still publish commentary on important issues and plan to play an active role in the 2022 local government elections. And we’ll try to accommodate people and organizations who want to submit articles for publication here, so you will still see an email newsletter from us every so often.

But for now, the woodpecker working on the fallen tree in our mini-forest is calling me back outside.

 

DO WE STILL NEED EARTH DAY?

Millions of people participated in a first-ever annual grassroots demonstration 51 years ago on April 22 to raise awareness about environmental concerns. They called it Earth Day.

At the time, in 1970, the message focused on saving the whales and cleaning the trash out of rivers. The public service announcements of the era featured an American Indian saddened to find garbage in a once-pristine river full of fish and a cute owl that said, “Give a hoot – don’t pollute.”

Then everyone went home and squirted chlorofluorocarbons inside their ovens and into their hair, which eventually ate holes in our atmosphere’s ozone layer. We turned on electrical lights powered by coal. We clear cut forests. We dumped the toxic rainwater washing over polluted streets and parking lots into our waterways that killed the fish and, we now know, is also killing the whales.

The sorry list goes on and on. There was so much we didn’t know then about how we were degrading the Earth.

The popular adage “Reuse-Recycle-Reduce” that every elementary student knows so well today was a foreign concept when Wisconsin Sen. Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, was considered a radical. Nelson’s genius was to capture the youthful anti-Vietnam War energy and shift it to environmental causes.

Today, our knowledge of how human activity has pushed irreversible climate change to the brink and threatens our own existence has increased a thousand-fold since 1970. So do we still need an Earth Day?

Unfortunately, yes, we do more than ever.

Even though we have made great strides toward reducing some of the ways humans harm Earth’s life-sustaining ecosystem, the really hard work lies ahead. Reducing the number of carbon emissions necessary to head off a catastrophic future of unbearable heat and diminished clean water will require a global effort and a common purpose.

But here we are, a half-century since Gaylord Nelson rang the environmental alarm bell, and considering the big picture, not much has changed. Humankind has not united and acted with urgency. Our economic system based on everlasting growth won’t allow it.

Some experts believe it is too late to reverse the effects of climate change and that humans must now learn to adapt in order to survive.

In his review of a new book, Earth 2020: An insider’s guide to a rapidly changing planet, Dr. Loys Maingon, a Comox Valley naturalist and biologist, writes:

“This is not a really optimistic book. Nor should it be. The realism laid out by climatologist Tapio Schneider in his essay “Climate 1970-2020” is exemplary. He pulls no punches and makes it clear to the reader that there will be none of the quick fixes that politicians promise, or have been promising for the past four decades.

“Schneider makes the case that we have shut doors and burnt bridges. We have reached a turning point from which there is now no going back. We will need to adapt. As Schneider point out, “Mitigation was the focus of 1992.” 28 years on, the mitigation bridge is burnt down.

“We need to confront severe changes, because “limiting global warming to 2C above industrial levels will be extremely challenging, if not impossible.”

So, yes, we still need a day to celebrate the progress we have made and to create awareness of the unimaginable challenges that lie ahead. And, by the way, the whales are still in danger.

 

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The Week: Doing it right on the wrong side of town, CVRD gets a good result for wrong reasons

The Week: Doing it right on the wrong side of town, CVRD gets a good result for wrong reasons

by | Mar 8, 2021

The Week: Doing it right on the wrong side of town, CVRD gets a good result for wrong reasons

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As voters and taxpayers, we hope our elected officials always do the right thing for the right reasons.

The Comox Valley Regional District did the right thing last week by terminating its contract with the Comox Valley Economic Development Society (CVEDS). But they did it for the wrong reasons.

The Economic Development Society was a poorly run service that clothed itself in secrecy, reported to no one but a few self-appointed friends and spent a lot of money for questionable community benefit. And in doing so, the society managed to disappoint, frustrate and antagonize broad sectors of the Comox Valley community.

That was the right reason to terminate this contract.

Hornby and Denman islands and the Village of Cumberland pulled their financial support for the CVEDS service many years ago because those taxpaying elected officials realized how little value they were getting for their money.

Regional directors from Courtenay and Areas A and B might have gotten there, too, but they were making a good faith effort to transform CVEDS into a modern and more relevant organization through — for the first time ever — serious oversight.

But the CVEDS contract was not terminated for its obvious lack of performance. It wasn’t terminated because it had lost its way many years ago by spending almost a third of its budget on a seafood festival that added nothing to the economic sustainability of local businesses beyond a slight uptick in restaurant reservations.

The society’s contract wasn’t terminated because it often claimed responsibility for things on which it actually had minimal impact. It wasn’t terminated because the society shunned accountability or that it failed to comply with requirements under the Societies Act. Or that it had trouble managing its money.

No, the regional district terminated the CVEDS contract because Comox council members objected to increased oversight and scrutiny. Comox councillors didn’t like the regional board setting goals for the society that targeted current problems, such as affordable housing for low-wage employees and familys’ access to child care.

Comox Councillor Ken Grant summed it up when he lectured Courtenay Councillor Wendy Morin about how elected officials should manage arms-length societies.

“That’s the thing about the independent governance model, you don’t get to tell them how to do their business. That’s been the problem from day one,” Grant said at the Feb. 9 regional board meeting.

Grant couldn’t have been more wrong.

When a local government creates an organization — as the regional district did by forming CVEDS in 1988 — that exists only because it receives more than $1 million in public funds annually, then the elected officials absolutely get to say what they want for their money. In fact, taxpayers expect their elected officials to set the big picture goals and to hold people accountable for achieving them.

Grant was right about one thing. The independent governance model has been the problem from day one. Day one being back in 1988. Since then the society has happily taken the public’s $1 million-plus every year and did whatever it wanted with the money. Past elected officials didn’t seem to care what they did.

What is truly amazing is that this bad example of political oversight took so long to blow up.

 

But don’t celebrate just yet

Just because the contract for economic development services gets voided later this year doesn’t mean Comox Valley taxpayers are off the hook.

The regional district wrote CVEDS a $400,000 check in January. That’s one-half of its 2021 funding. The expectation is that the society will continue to fulfil the majority of their 2021 work plan items, including the ones the Town of Comox finds so distasteful.

But, of course, the regional district has no means of ensuring that all or even most of the work will get done satisfactorily. What recourse does the CVRD have? The contract will terminate on Aug. 26 whether the work gets done or not.

The second half of the $800,000 CVEDS 2021 budget is scheduled for July. Will they automatically get another $400,000 for their last two months? Not necessarily, according to CVRD Chief Administration Officer Russell Dyson.

“CVEDS has various commitments in place to deliver services for economic development, tourism and visitors services, and destination marketing. The termination notice provides service to CVEDS for eight of the 12 months in 2021, therefore the second payment for 2021 will consider any adjustments to annual allocation for this adjustment, noting that some costs are annual whether the contract is terminated part way through the year,” he told Decafnation via email.

Dyson confirmed that the regional district would not be responsible for any severance pay for CVEDS employees because they are not CVRD employees.

But Comox Valley taxpayers might become responsible for the Visitors Centre, which some people call the “drum” building and others call the White Elephant.

According to Dyson, “Upon the wind up of CVEDS, the net assets after payment of liabilities is transferred to CVRD and the participant member municipalities. The ongoing ownership and operation of the Visitors Centre will be a key consideration of the service participants in determining future service priorities.”

Dyson says the CVRD and municipal partners will be meeting and working with CVEDS staff the next few months to “encourage” that the work plan priorities are delivered and to encourage a smooth transition to a future service delivery determined through the service review.

“The second payment amount will be determined through this collaborative work over the next few months,” he said.

 

So what will rise from the ashes of CVEDS?

How will local governments provide destination marketing, handle visitor services, manage the hotel tax money and encourage economic vibrancy?

Given that Cumberland and the islands are doing just fine managing their own economic prosperity in-house — as most other communities on Vancouver Island already do — the ideal scenario now is that Courtenay and Comox will hire their own economic development officers.

The CVRD should also hire an economic officer to focus on the three electoral areas because it’s too easy for the rural areas’ needs to be overshadowed by the municipalities. They may all feel strongly about food security, but there are different projects that need to take place in different areas.

Then all four of the Valley’s economic development officers can meet monthly to share information and work together where it’s possible.

Meanwhile, all local governments should agree to share the contract for destination marketing and visitor services to Tourism Vancouver Island (about $260,000 per year). The City of Courtenay economic development officer should have input to Tourism Vancouver Island about how local MRDT funds are spent because all of that money comes from the city.

 

Every community’s needs will evolve over time

But no matter how our elected officials propose to meet those needs, they must always favour transparency and accountability and ensure their objectives are being met without favouritism and for the benefit of the greatest number of people.

 

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