by George Le Masurier | May 10, 2018
The hours are long and the paycheck is short, but Cumberland Mayor Leslie Baird told a crowd of about 65 in Comox that serving your community through local government can be a rewarding experience
About 65 people interested in the future of the Town of Comox and the upcoming Oct. 20 municipal general election turned out for a public forum this week on the roles and responsibilities of a council member.
Cumberland Mayor Leslie Baird shared her experiences during 28 continuous years of public service with the crowd at a forum organized by a citizens’ group called Comox Tomorrow.
Kathi Woodley also spoke on behalf of the Council of Canadians, Imagine Comox Valley and the Global Awareness Network, who are co-sponsoring a Sustainability Forum on May 24 to raise the profile of sustainability in this year’s municipal elections.
The purpose of the May 8 forum at the Comox Golf Club was to increase participation in this year’s election campaigns and provide information about “life on a municipal council” for those who might be thinking about running for office.
Incumbent Comox councillors Russ Arnott, Maureen Swift and Hugh McKinnon attended along with Courtenay councillor and mayoral candidate Bob Wells and Cumberland Councillor Jesse Kelter.
Baird told the audience that despite the extra hours spent in meetings and reading reports, serving your community through local government was a rewarding endeavor.
Asked what qualifications were required to run for municipal office, Baird said there really aren’t any.
Cumberland Mayor Leslie Baird
“I was a mother and I had a job,” she said about her initial step into municipal politics. Adding that the learning curve is steep and that you essentially know nothing when you’re first elected.
Last year, the Village of Cumberland had 495 pages of agenda that represented additional volumes of required reading for council members.
“The most frightening thing for a mayor is when a councillor shows up and hasn’t opened their meeting package,” she said.
“There will be hard times, especially when your community is divided,” she said, referring to the controversial development proposal by Trilogy Properties Corp. in the mid-2000s. “But it’s worth it, because you’re helping your community.”
And she said council members shouldn’t beat themselves up over tough decisions like that.
“You go with your decisions based on the information you have at the time,” she said.
But the Cumberland Council and Mayor Baird go out of their way to address citizen’s ideas and complaints personally. The council holds Village Hall meetings several times every month without an agenda, and they regularly survey local residents on delicate issues.
Baird said she meets face-to-face over coffee with every resident who sends an email complaint to the village.
“I don’t see them as criticisms, but as opportunities,” she said. “You always get a better product in the end through discussion … with colleagues or citizens.”
The mayor did, however, express some frustration over people who complain about how the council spends taxpayers’ money.
“And then we hold many public budget sessions and nobody shows up,” she said.
Baird was asked several questions from the audience about how much time she spends on village government business and was the financial remuneration worth it.
Baird, who is retired, says she goes to the village office every day, spending approximately 30 hours a week on council matters. Comox Council members Arnott, Swift and McKinnon agreed generally with that time estimate.
“And then there’s the grocery store,” McKinnon said, referring to casual conversations with constituents. Baird agreed, saying it takes her forever to get to the post office because she stops to have conversations with people on the sidewalk.
Baird and the other council members present said the compensation wasn’t a factor in their decisions to run for public office. The Cumberland mayor estimated that she makes less than 50-cents per hour for her time.
Arnott, who is seeking re-election this year, said he receives roughly $900 per month after taxes.
Toward the end of the meeting, Comox resident Don Davis announced he’ll be running for municipal office in 2018, as he has every year since 1990.
by George Le Masurier | Feb 5, 2018
PHOTO: Courtenay Councilor David Frisch will seek a second term to finish work on transportation, zoning and the city’s downtown core (See story below)
With just 257 days before Comox Valley voters choose the 29 elected officials who will run local governments and school district through 2022, only a few people have declared their candidacy.
That’s not unusual for this community, where candidates historically wait until summer to announce they are running. But it’s not the norm in other communities.
In the Capital Regional District, for example, most of the 13 incumbent mayors have announced their plans to stand for re-election.In a Decafnation survey of the Valley’s three municipalities, only four incumbents say they definitely plan to seek office again: Courtenay’s Erik Eriksson and David Frisch, Comox Valley Regional District Area B Director Rod Nicol and School District 71 Board Chair Janice Caton.
FURTHER READING: David Frisch, “There’s a lot of work to do” — (SEE BELOW); Eriksson to seek mayor’s chair.
No one from Comox Town Council replied.
Courtenay Mayor Larry Jangula said his decision whether to run again weighed on several factors.
“It is far too early to make any decisions now,” he said. “I will make my mind up in the summer.”
In reference to City Council member Eriksson, who announced in October that he would seek Jangula’s mayoralty seat, the incumbent said, “It is very distracting when people indicate they are running a year away from an election. It takes everyone’s mind away from what they are doing and it politicizes every decision made at Council.”
Jangula said his decision will be based on a number of factors including his wife’s health, his health and “an examination of who might be running.”
Eriksson said, “I just had to get my campaign started. It takes time to put together a successful support team for the mayor’s office.”
Courtenay councilor Rebecca Lennox said she’s undecided.
“The opportunity to serve on council has been life-changing and I am so honoured to have had this experience,” she said. “Being diagnosed with cancer half-way through this term has definitely changed many things for me.
“At this point I am undecided whether I will run for a second term, and will see how I feel and how my results are looking nearer the time.” she said.
Cumberland’s Roger Kishi says he’s leaning toward running, but will decide in the spring.
Jesse Kelter, also a Cumberland councillor, said she has not decided “one way or the other about running in the next election.”
“As you can imagine, as a parent of young children and a professional it is a very tricky balance to give so much time to Council and all the committees that go along with it,” she said. “I have a lot of things to weigh ….”
School District 71 Trustee Cliff Boldt said he and his wife, Maureen, were mulling over a re-election bid, but that there were “lots of considerations.” He hasn’t decided yet.
Former NDP hopeful for the provincial Comox Valley riding, Kiyoshi Kosky said he’s also considering a run at municipal office.
David Frisch hopes to finish zoning, transportation work
First-term Courtenay Council Member David Frisch didn’t originally intend to seek a second term.
“I thought I would do a shift,” he said. “But I discovered it takes so long to do things; I’d feel like I was quitting now. There’s a lot of work to do.”
In his first term, Frisch has focused on two primary issues: zoning and transportation.
“That’s the core of what we do,” he said. “The roots of what we have today go so far back, to the Joseph McPhee layout of the city in the late 1800s, that it’s a big weight to move now.”
But Frisch believes the current council has made dramatic and positive shifts in the city’s direction. He points to the fact that council now approves all development applications and questions the value of each application to the city’s future and the Regional Growth Strategy.
He sees his role in supporting that shift in direction as one of the accomplishments of his first term.
“We’ve steered developers toward multi-unit projects and opened the door to secondary suites,” Frisch said. “There’s no easier or better mechanism to get affordable housing.”
Frisch has championed the creation of multi-use lanes. Three years ago, he pushed for protected bike lanes on Willemar Avenue, which is a corridor for three public schools. But he couldn’t move council at the time, “It was too progressive for them.”
But three years later, those bike lanes are in the transportation plan.
Frisch sits on the Comox Valley Regional District Integrated Resource Transportation Select Committee whose two main goals are: one, to create a multi-use path for bicycles, scooters and walkers along the Dyke Road; and, two, to establish a single point of contact for future transportation initiatives between municipalities.
If he’s re-elected next fall, Frisch says he will pursue more transportation and zoning solutions. He’s particularly excited about creating a scooter/cycling plan to help people move through all of west Courtenay. He envisions a grid of pathways connecting Willermar, Fitzgerald and Cliffe avenues.
And he’s not limiting his transportation vision to traditional infrastructure. Frisch believes the city can have important transportation corridors that aren’t on existing roadways. He points to the Rotary Trail alongside the E&N rail tracks and the Courtenay River Trail as examples of alternate ways for people to move around their community.
After becoming engrossed in these issues and seeing how long it takes to make progress, Frisch admits the work “might take a lifetime to do.”
But for now, he’s simply committing himself to serve a second term.
by George Le Masurier | Aug 11, 2017
That the Courtenay-Comox Sewage Commission shelved its multi-million dollar sewerage project this summer comes as no surprise.
For nearly two years, Comox Valley citizens have implored the commission and regional district engineers to consider less expensive and more effective solutions for moving raw sewage from Courtenay and Comox to a treatment plant on Brent Road, on the Comox peninsula.
And to do it on a site or sites that present no risk to people’s drinking water.
But the commission, strong-armed by the representatives from Comox Council and aided by a misinformed CFB Comox delegate, pressed ahead anyway to build a new pump station in Area B, which has no representation on the commission.
Like so many of the commission’s sewer plans in the past, this one seemed destined for another lawsuit costly to Courtenay and Comox taxpayers.
But faced with a cost estimate nearly double the original budget — $12 million to $22 million — and the spectre of adverse impacts to private wells in the neighborhood of the proposed site, the regional district’s engineers saw red flags and took the summer to reconsider.
Courtenay Councillor Erik Eriksson
For more reasonable thinkers, like Erik Eriksson, a Courtenay representative on the commission, this pause in a misguided project provides an opportunity for the regional district to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new overall plan that encompasses the whole Comox Valley, and that takes citizen and environmental concerns seriously.
Let’s review the facts:
The commission proposed building a Comox No. 2 pump station — at a cost of $12 million — to redirect its raw sewage from a deteriorating pipe that runs along the base of the Willemar Bluffs. The current pumps at existing Courtenay and Comox pump stations are inadequate to move the sewage up and over the Comox peninsula to the Brent Road treatment plant.
But the commission’s own Advisory Committee said building a new pump station was the least desirable option of several it considered. The committee recommended rebuilding the existing pump station in Courtenay as the most preferred solution.
The regional district’s own initial financial analysis showed upgrading the Courtenay No. 1 pump station was the best and most cost-effective option in the long run. Email documentation shows the Town of Comox disliked this report.
But an independent analysis confirmed that the CVRD could save taxpayers between $7 million and $12 million in the long-term if it upgraded the pumps at Courtenay immediately.
The commission’s long-term plan is to upgrade the pumps at Courtenay No. 1 in just a few years anyway. So why spend millions unnecessarily now?
In the alternative, the Advisory Committee noted, upgrading the existing pump station at Jane Place in Comox, would also cost less in the long run.
Either of those options would eliminate the need for a second pump station and eliminate the vulnerable section under the Willemar Bluffs. Plus, in both of these options, raw sewage would not threaten any drinking water supplies. Courtenay and Comox residents enjoy piped water, not vulnerable private wells.
And Eriksson, a potential candidate for mayor of Courtenay, has a third option that could also resolve issues created by the failed South Sewer referendum earlier this year.
Eriksson proposes building a new state-of-the-art treatment plant in the south Courtenay area that would handle all wastewater from west of the Courtenay River. That would take enough pressure off the existing Courtenay and Comox pump stations to render the proposed Comox No. 2 pump unnecessary.
And it would also solve the problem of failing septic systems in the Royston and Union Bay areas and provide the infrastructure for new development.
It would also provide a solution for the Village of Cumberland, which shamefully continues to pollute the Trent River watershed and estuary.
The new treatment plant could treat the water to such a high standard to use its effluent for agriculture and other reclamation purposes, including reinjection into groundwater. In an increasing number of communities around the world, wastewater is cleaned to potable standards and even flowed back into drinking water systems.
There are probably other farsighted options, too, rather than spend $22 million — at least! — on a pump station inherent with risks to humans and potentially expensive lawsuits that serves only a narrow purpose.
If there’s any justice and common sense left in this world, next month the engineers for the Courtenay-Comox Sewage Commission will recommend a more visionary, comprehensive sewerage strategy for the entire Comox Valley.
by George Le Masurier | May 25, 2017
The newly reconfigured Courtenay-Comox riding dispensed a few surprises for the political experts this year. The biggest one: it’s still a swing riding.
With control of the B.C. Legislature hanging on the outcome of a recount and some 2,000 absentee ballots, the riding unexpectedly became this election’s center of attention. It wasn’t supposed to be so close.
When the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission split Cumberland from the Comox Valley, and moved this traditionally strong NDP community into a new mid-Island constituency, the change should have favored the Liberals. Add in growing Comox Valley support for the Green Party, which naturally siphons most of its votes from the NDP, and the stage was set for a third consecutive Liberal victory.
The fact that the NDP won the new riding by a slim 189-vote margin for Ronna-Rae Leonard triggers some interesting observations about Courtenay-Comox voters, as well as the mood of the province.
The vote was clearly a rebuke of Christy Clark. When a province’s economy leads the nation, records Canada’s lowest unemployment rates and balances its budget, the incumbent government should expect to retain a majority.
Instead, voters revolted against Clark’s arrogant attitude, her vendetta against teachers and the ravaging of public school funding, her too-cozy relationship with corporations and her terrible decisions for British Columbia’s environment regarding LNG plants, dams that only benefit Albertans and inviting an armada of oil tankers in the Salish Sea.
All of these issues must have resonated with the 16,000-plus Courtenay-Comox voters who cast ballots for the NDP and Green parties.
On the flip side, the strong military support for the Liberal candidate, Jim Benninger, a former commanding officer of CFB Comox, didn’t materialize.
Political pundits predicted that the absentee ballots would comprise mostly military personnel and that they would lean Liberal. Didn’t happen. The absentee ballots actually broke in favor of the NDP.
Was Benninger just not a good candidate, or do individuals in the armed forces share the majority’s growing concerns for the environment and of inappropriate corporate influence and access to Liberal cabinet ministers? The latter seems more likely.
And let’s not forget that this is still a swing riding. Of the 24 elections since 1933 — including this one — the NDP/CCF have won 11, the Liberal/Social Credit/Conservatives have won 13. (Herbert Welch, running for a Liberal-Conservative coalition, won two elections and served from 1945 to 1952.)
The popular vote in this riding has always been close. Except for the 2001 election when Stan Hagen rode the wave of support for a new Liberal/Social Credit coalition, no candidate has won a majority of the vote. Hagen got 56 percent that year.
And despite Hagen’s and Don McRae’s victories for the Liberals in 2005, 2009 and 2013, they received fewer total votes than combined NDP/Green candidates in each election. In the 2013 election, McRae trailed NDP/Green candidates by 1,768 votes.
In this election, the NDP/Green candidates nearly doubled that margin, out-polling the Liberals by 3,339 votes.
But in both the 2013 and 2017 elections, Conservative party candidates also played a role. They won 1,740 votes in the 2013 election, making that a dead heat. And they won 2,201 votes this year, cutting the NDP/Green lead to 1,138.
So, what does that mean?
It means this riding, with or without Cumberland, is almost evenly split.
So shouldn’t people expect the winning candidate to represent the Comox Valley with a mindful recognition of the progressive policies of the NDP and Green parties as well as the conservative ideology of the Liberals? That hasn’t been the case.
Hagen almost exclusively catered to the big money crowd. McRae less so, perhaps, at least not so obviously. And will Leonard turn her back on nearly half of her constituents?
The problem, of course, is the blind allegiance MLAs must devote to their party leadership. Vote how we tell you. There’s no tolerance for independence in the Legislature.
And until party leaders loosen their tight grip on individual MLAs, British Columbians will be best served by minority governments. When party leaders have to compromise and negotiate, rather than rule with an iron hand, they produce better legislation.
by George Le Masurier | Feb 9, 2017
America’s fast-food president likes it clean
Seventy-year-old U.S. President Donald Trump loves fast food. Big Macs. Buckets of KFC. Slices of pizza. And he hates exercise, which he doesn’t do often. America’s Fast-Food president isn’t setting a good example in the fight against childhood obesity and early onset diabetes.
Why does he eat so much fast food? In his own words:
“I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there (McDonald’s) than maybe someplace that you have no idea where the food’s coming from. It’s a certain standard,” he said.
Useless facts about electric cars B.C. will pay you to drive
The B.C. provincial government this week announced a $40 million investment to encourage people to drive electric cars. In addition, residents can save up to $11,000 if they trade their old car for an electric one.
The province’s Clean Energy Vehicles for B.C. program offers up to $5,000 for an electric vehicle purchase, and the non-profit B.C. Scrap-It offers and additional $6,000 dollars towards electric vehicles purchases. Vehicles priced above $77,000 are not eligible for purchase incentives.
Here are some electric car facts:
• The first cars ever made by Oldsmobile and Studebaker were electric.
• Electric cars outsold gas models by 10-to-1 in the 1890s.
• The world’s first automotive dealerships sold electric cars.
• Self-starters were introduced in electric cars 20 years before gas vehicles.
• The very first speeding ticket was given to the driver of an electric car.
Sarah Palin coming to Canada? We say (big gulp) No betcha!
There’s a rumor that President Trump might appoint the weird and absolutely nuts Sarah Palin as the U.S. ambassador to Canada. Aside from the fact that this makes many people want to throw up, she doesn’t speak Canadian or any of our other official languages.
Ottawa Citizen columnist Andrew Cohen wrote, “In Canada, Palin would have to learn to speak one of our official languages. She would have to live in a land of naïfs who favour immigrants, gay marriage, the United Nations and NATO.”
Let’s take a big gulp ourselves, and hope this is fake news, or an early April Fools joke.
Cumberland celebrates its heritage, while Comox destroys theirs
Heritage Week in British Columbia starts next Monday and runs through Sunday, Feb. 13 to Feb. 19. The Village of Cumberland will celebrate its history starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday, February 18th, with the 13th annual Heritage Faire at the Cumberland Recreation Institute Hall. The Faire revives the spirit of a folk festival in the 1950s focused on the diverse heritage of Cumberlanders.
The Town of Comox, on the other hand, doesn’t have any heritage events planned that we know about. They just have anti-heritage events. Like the Town Council’s recent unanimous decision to beg the B.C. Supreme Court to release the town from the obligations it agreed to 35 years ago in accepting famous naturalist Hamilton Mack Laing’s property, house and money.
In spite of pleas from Heritage B.C. — the sponsor of Heritage Week — the Town of Comox wants to tear down Laing’s house, Shakesides, and use his money for other purposes.
