The Week: Comox has a hissy over CV Economic Development Society changes

The Week: Comox has a hissy over CV Economic Development Society changes

by | Nov 10, 2020

It’s stormy weather this week down at the Comox Public Marina  |  George Le Masurier photo

The Week: Comox has a hissy over CV Economic Development Society changes

By

Well, folks, another week has passed so that must mean another new controversy has erupted over the Comox Valley Economic Development Society. And this one has pulled back the cloak — just a tiny bit — on the behind the scenes politicking at the regional district and the lockstep march of the Comox Town Council.

In the midst of what appeared to be a collaborative attempt to reach a shared vision for the future of regional economic development, Comox Town Councillors have unanimously decided to derail that process by triggering a section of the Local Government Act. That section is often used as the first step in withdrawing from a service.

It’s no secret that the CV Economic Development Society, known as CVEDS, has become a focal point that epitomizes the Comox Valley’s geopolitical polarization. And it’s a red hot point right now.

The region’s remaining old guard, epitomized by Comox Council and Electoral Area C Director Edwin Grieve, love the CVEDS status quo. The new blood of elected officials in Cumberland, Courtenay and Areas A and B do not.

So now, with changes afoot, no one is complaining more about proposed reforms to the regional district’s relationship with CVEDS than Comox councillors. There’s a reason for that.

The old guard loves CVEDS because it has historically done their bidding. A case in point: no Comox Valley jurisdiction has benefited more from CVEDS activity than the Town of Comox.

This imbalance has rankled everyone else. And it’s one reason why Cumberland and Hornby and Denman islands have withdrawn from regional economic development services.

But that’s not the only factor driving the new blood’s desire to transform CVEDS. These elected officials want economic support services that accommodate the community’s shift toward social and environmental values.

The new blood sees the old CVEDS as promoters of environmental projects like the Raven Coal Mine and bullish land developers such as 3L Developments. They see CVEDS undermining a proposal by an active Exhibition Grounds user in order to promote a convention centre on ALR land. They see a lack of accountability, a lack of interest in the social issues that affect economic vitality and a lack of attention to non-profit organizations that contribute to economic readiness.

They also see the regional district’s reprehensibly long history of a lack of meaningful oversight of an organization funded with public money.

It’s not surprising that the Town of Comox would object to any reforms of the regional economic development service that might divert staff attention and funding to other beneficiaries. Like the agriculture community. Or the arts and cultural community. Or some other physical location of the valley.

But the extent of Comox Council’s territorial protectionism is confusing and conflicted.

This was evident at a recent CVRD workshop solely focused on economic services. Comox Councillor Ken Grant objected to any funding or initiative to promote mountain biking or improve the sport’s infrastructure because it might benefit Cumberland, where the most trails and amenities exist, but who no longer participates in the service.

Other directors were quick to point out that being known Islandwide as a mountain biking mecca brings economic benefit to all kinds of businesses across the entire Comox Valley.

In fact, it was a Comox business — the former Simon’s Cycles, now known as the Comox Bike Company — that practically invented mountain biking in the Comox Valley. There are still two bike stores in Comox and residents/taxpayers/voters often go to the Cumberland Community Forest to ride.

And yet, Comox wants support for its own marina and Comox Valley Airport projects.

Here’s the problem. Everything was working fine for Comox until the new blood turned its attention to the CV Economic Development Society. Now, no longer in the majority, the town sees its influence and benefits drifting toward other areas of the community. And they don’t like it.

So, they’ve started a statutory service review of the regional district’s economic development service under the Local Government Act. But the regional district had already scheduled a complete review and reimagining of the service for next year.

It doesn’t seem to make sense. Except, the formalized service review includes a provision for Comox to withdraw from the service if it doesn’t like the outcome, which it probably won’t. This is the same process requested by Cumberland when it decided to withdraw.

Comox Mayor Russ Arnott implied in a statement to Decafnation this week that the town doesn’t intend to withdraw. But what other benefit exists for going the formal route over the already planned informal route?

Well, the public can’t discern the town’s motive or long-term goals of this action because Mayor Arnott has locked up his pack of councillors from speaking about it without his permission.

When Decafnation asked councillors for more explanation and for their personal opinion on what they hoped this action would achieve, they refused to talk.

Councillor Alex Bissinger said the council decided that only the mayor could speak on the topic to avoid “mixed messages.” In other words, any slight deviation from the company line might cause trouble.

Heaven forbid that a Comox council member might have an opinion that differs from the rest of the council or whose feelings about an issue might present a perspective that hasn’t been pre-vetted. Imagine the chaos that would ensue!

By comparison, Courtenay council members regularly disagree with each other and express their views openly for public consumption. By Comox council standards, it’s a wonder the city gets anything accomplished. But they do and their constituents usually know what they’re doing and why.

So the CV Economic Development Society drama will now play out in a formalized setting without all the voices at the table. Only one representative from Comox and Courtenay will be able to participate.

Even the recently formed Economic Development Select Committee will meet this week to fold up its tents. It had been charged to investigate efficiencies and cost savings from integrating CVEDS activities and office space with the regional district.

But that committee’s effort was probably going nowhere anyway. CV Economic Development Society Executive Director John Watson has arranged for new office space in … wait for it …

Comox Town Hall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WANT TO READ MORE ABOUT CVEDS?

Go HERE to read all of our stories on the Comox Valley Economic Development Society

 

 

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Enter your email address to subscribe to the Decafnation newsletter.

More
Comox, Area C may derail regional economic development planning

Comox, Area C may derail regional economic development planning

by | Nov 3, 2020

The Comox public marina  |  George Le Masurier photo

Comox, Area C may derail regional economic development planning

By

Another controversy has erupted over the Comox Valley Economic Development Society, highlighting once again how the community’s political shift has caused turmoil behind the scenes.

In a move that surprised many Comox Valley Regional District directors and staff, the Comox Town Council along with Area C Director Edwin Grieve have disrupted a plan to start discussing the best method of providing a regional economic development service.

Two weeks ago, CVRD directors held a special workshop as a first step toward finding consensus among the board about whether the existing Comox Valley Economic Development Society is still the best method for providing economic development services or if the 32-year-old model needed some reforms.

Although there are hard-line differences of opinion between Comox and Area C and the rest of the regional district board, directors appeared to leave the workshop thinking they had made progress on a path forward.

But just 10 days after the workshop, the seven-member Comox Town Council voted unanimously to initiate a formal service review of the regional economic development function. It’s unclear who Director Grieve consulted, but he also sent a similar letter to the CVRD.

The Local Government Act allows participants in a municipal service to initiate a review of the service or to withdraw from it. The act also specifies the process for both and for dispute resolution.

Part 10, Division 6 of the act specifies that “a preliminary meeting must be held within 120 days” of the written notice to establish the process for the review. It states further that negotiations must begin within 60 days of the preliminary meeting.

The long end of those timelines would delay discussions about how to deliver economic development services for six months.

At the workshop, directors were urged by the consultant facilitator to begin discussions immediately about whether they wanted to continue with the Comox Valley Economic Development Society as it’s currently structured, reform it or replace it with a new service delivery model.

The facilitator pressed directors to have a preferred option for going forward by next December, a year before the current CVEDS two-year contract expires on Dec. 31, 2022.

It’s unknown at this time how this formal service review might affect the board’s plans unofficially made at the workshop. Directors could carry on concurrently with the formal review or wait for the outcome at its conclusion.

One major factor that differentiates a formal service review from the board’s own informal considerations is who gets to participate. The whole board attended the workshop and all directors had input into their agreed-upon strategies.

But The Local Government Act specifies that during a service review only one representative from each participant engages in the negotiations. That means just one director from Courtenay, Comox and Areas A, B and C. It’s not clear who would represent the CVRD, if anyone, as Board Chair Jesse Ketler is a Cumberland Councillor and the Village is not a participant in the service.

 

WHY A SERVICE REVIEW

The Village of Cumberland and Hornby and Denman islands followed the service review process when they individually withdrew from the economic development function.

But in a statement to Decafnation, Comox Mayor Russ Arnott denied the town was preparing to withdraw.

“Our current staff have full-time jobs and commitments, so the idea that they could take on the economic development portfolio is just not realistic,” he said.

However, neither Area C Director Grieve or any of the Comox councillors contacted by Decafnation have responded to questions about why they took this formal action rather than working through the process discussed at the recent workshop.

But Comox Mayor Arnott said his council started the review because he believes there has been a breakdown in governance and direction of the economic development service.

“For the past few years select members of the service have been constantly criticising the independent work of CVEDS,” he told Decafnation Tuesday. “This has led to dysfunction and inefficiency during the most important economic development challenge in a generation as well as a major loss in experience with staff and board members resigning.

“Our goal is to make this service once again work for Comox and the communities in the valley.”

Three CVEDS board members have recently resigned. Three staff members were laid off and one, Lara Greasly, quit to take a job with the Town of Comox.

In its press release, the Town of Comox noted five achievements it attributed to CVEDS work that “have added countless jobs, enjoyment, and prosperity to the entire valley.”

They were: expansion of the Comox Valley Airport, the evolution of the BC Seafood Festival, enhancements of Marina Park in Comox, the Fixed Wing Search and Rescue training centre at CFB Comox and the redevelopment of Comox Mall.

In his letter to the regional district, Area C Director Grieve also noted the society’s three decades of “bringing benefit to the region.”

“However, over the past two years, this independence has been severely eroded leading to resignations from members of the society’s staff and executive alike,” he wrote. “This in effect puts it at odds to the “Society Act” and doing so turns it into yet another arm of local government exposing it to vagaries the local politics.”

 

BEHIND THE SCENES

Disagreement at the regional district board has historically often split along the border between Comox and Courtenay. This has become a sharper line since the 2018 municipal elections brought new and more progressive directors to the CVRD board table, and including changes in Areas A and B.

CVRD Director Ken Grant, a Comox councillor, has been vocal at recent board meetings about his disapproval of the changes made to the CVEDS contract and the active role directors have taken toward integration of shared services and setting the society’s work plans.

Sources close to the board say Grant has talked behind the scenes about withdrawing from the economic development function and putting that money into the town’s marina development plans. And he has publicly expressed hostile views about economic development funds going into projects promoted by other directors, such as agriculture, arts and culture and mountain biking infrastructure.

Other directors have starkly different views of economic development that include social and environmental values that they say better represent the shift in community priorities. These directors have pressed CVEDS to include projects in their work plan that address, for example, child care and support for non-profit organizations.

The CVRD board has always had contractual final approval over CVEDS work plans, although past boards have provided almost no oversight or input.

That this board has been more aggressive in setting CVEDS work plans and demanding accountability, and cut its $1.2 million budget by a third, has rankled those who were happy with the status quo.

 

WHAT’S NEXT

The CVRD board will likely get a report from its staff about the service review process at either the Nov. 17th Committee of the Whole meeting or at the full board meeting on Nov. 24.

This article has been updated to include portions of Area C Director Edwin Grieve’s letter to the regional district asking for a service review of the economic development function.

 

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Enter your email address to subscribe to the Decafnation newsletter.

More

No Results Found

The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.

The Week: Where did the Attorney General go; and, Trudeau’s middle ‘class’

The Week: Where did the Attorney General go; and, Trudeau’s middle ‘class’

by | Nov 22, 2019

Boys playing pool, circa late 1970s  |  George Le Masurier

The Week: Where did the Attorney General go; and, Trudeau’s middle ‘class’

By

It appears that the BC Attorney General’s office may have changed its view of the Town of Comox’s desire to alter the Mack Laing Trust. How else to explain the last eight months of dead silence?

It’s been so long ago you may not remember that the town wants to tear down Laing’s historic home, called Shakesides, and spend the life savings that he gifted to the people of Comox on something other than what the trust agreement allows.

But in early May, the Attorney General surprised both the town and the Mack Laing Heritage Society by announcing a delay that they said could last about five months. The AG gave no reason for the delay. The town had hoped to go to trial during the court’s June sessions.

FURTHER READING: More about Hamilton Mack Laing and Shakesides

That five-month delay has now turned into eight months and counting. And the AG’s office still refuses to explain why or what it’s doing to bring the case to a resolution. Even town councillors have no idea what’s going on at the AG’s office.

Has the Attorney General reconsidered its support of the Town of Comox after taking the District of West Vancouver to court in July? The AG argued in that case that the municipality broke a similar agreement with two residents who had bequeathed their property.

Or, did the town’s failure to properly consult with the K’omoks First Nations set off alarms in the AG’s office?

Perhaps the Mack Laing Heritage Society’s comprehensive business plan that shows widespread community support for restoring Shakesides — more than two dozen individuals and construction companies have volunteered labor and materials — has caught the Attorney General’s attention.

Or maybe the AG’s office has finally realized how badly the town has handled Mack Laing’s generous gifts, especially the finances.

We can only hope one of these issues have given the Attorney General a crisis of conscience.

For nearly three years, a 5-2 majority of Comox councillors have been trying to ram their application through the BC Supreme Court. They spent the first two years, and three expensive Supreme Court hearings, attempting to block the Mack Laing Society from presenting evidence at trial.

Ex-mayor Paul Ives led this charge and current Mayor Russ Arnott has happily carried the torch. They have cost Comox taxpayers huge amounts of money trying to justify their actions.

Meanwhile, Shakesides sits in disrepair. But as Craig Freeman and the Merville Community Association have proved, it’s neither difficult nor expensive to preserve and rejuvenate a historic building, and give it a new life for public enjoyment.

— The minority Liberal government announced a new cabinet post this week: Mona Fortier was appointed Minister of Middle-Class Prosperity and Associate Minister of Finance.

Does that term ‘middle-class’ bother anyone else? Don’t we really mean middle-income? Does Canada have a class system?

Giving middle income families the label of ‘middle-class’ suggests there is an upper class and a lower class.

I don’t know about you, but in my world, people who have higher incomes don’t necessarily warrant a ‘higher class’ status than anyone else. In some instances, I’d argue the opposite. Likewise, people who have had less financial success in their lives don’t warrant ‘lower class’ status.

I’m nitpicking, perhaps. But how we use language affects people and reveals a truth about how we see the world. Doesn’t assigning a ‘class’ to our income levels say something unfavorable about our sense of social justice and personal worth?

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Enter your email address to subscribe to the Decafnation newsletter.
More
The Stolen Church now repaying history with new life in Merville

The Stolen Church now repaying history with new life in Merville

by | Nov 21, 2019

The Stolen Church at the Merville Community Association  |  George Le Masurier photos

The Stolen Church now repaying history with new life in Merville

By

Who says historic Comox Valley buildings from the early 1900s can’t be fully restored and recommissioned for future generations?

Not Craig Freeman.

The president of the Merville Community Association just points to the second relocation and recent restoration of St. Mary’s Church, which made its debut in September during the community’s 100-year celebration.

“There’s a lot of things you can do with an old building,” Freeman told Decafnation this week. “They get dilapidated, sure, but we can repair them. It’s no big deal.”

Freeman is one of the board members of the Merville Community Association who works in the construction industry and oversaw the move and renovation of the church and its companion building that once housed a Sunday school. Pete Birch is a recent board member who also helped on the church renovation.

The “Stolen Church” — so named because it was originally built in Tsolum in 1915 and moved to Merville in 1919 to serve WWI veterans residing in the soldier settlement there — has shed its worn down condition and its barn red colour.

Today, the church is painted a bright blue with a new metal roof, refinished original wood floors and original stained glass window all sitting on top of a sturdy concrete and foam block foundation. The interior has been double insulated and rewired.

Outside, local craftsman Bill Enns made a new custom solid cedar door with handmade old-style wrought iron hinges.

The Stolen Church sits on the community association’s three-acre property just north of the Merville Store. The property also hosts a playground, a site for a future community garden and, of course, the iconic Merville Hall, which itself has undergone a major renovation.

A solar grid on the hall’s new metal roof captures enough energy to power the church for a net positive energy consumption.

“I don’t know why people let these buildings go,” Freeman said.

He got involved with the community association 15 years ago because a musical group he plays with, Fiddlejam, had been using the Merville Hall for concerts and dances. He wanted to see the hall maintained and not lost to the community.

The main hall has been fixed up, too, with a bright yellow exterior paint job — courtesy of volunteers from local scout troops, musicians and painters in 2010 — its own metal roof, a solar power array installed on the roof and multiple interior improvements.

Freeman sees other historic buildings around the Valley that are worthy of saving and put back to public uses.

A couple of years ago, he wrote a letter to the editor offering the Town of Comox an alternative to their plan to tear down the heritage home of famous naturalist Mack Laing, called Shakesides.

“I just don’t understand why they don’t renovate that building so we (Merville Community Association) offered to do that and give it a home up here, if they wanted to move it,” Freeman said. “The Valley has lost too many historic buildings already.”

 

HISTORY OF STOLEN CHURCH

Grantham area farmers built the church in 1915 near where the Tsolum School stands today. For $200, the church served the Anglican community. But soon, in 1919, there was a greater need in the Merville area, where the Canadian government had offered land to WWI vets through the Soldier Settlement project.

So volunteers pulled the church on skids with a tractor up the gravel road. An unused army hut was later moved to the church site from the WWII Sandwick Camp and became a place to hold Sunday school classes.

The Anglican diocese finally gave up on the little church in 2003. It went through several ownerships until Alison and Brad Orr purchased it in 2013.

Not wanting the buildings to decay beyond saving, Freeman offered to move both to the Merville Hall site and restore them. The Orrs sold them for a dollar apiece in 2015.

The community association raised funds and acquired grants for the project. They hired Nickel Brothers to move them and, with the help of community volunteers, prepared foundations and made the move up the Island Highway into a nightime parade-like event.

 

WHAT IT COST

Although Freeman has the skills to have done most of the work himself and a few friends, the association contracted out the drwall, concrete entrance and electrical. He says they wanted to get it done in time for the Merville 100 Years Celebration in September, 2019.

It cost $15,000 to move each of the two buildings, and they spent another $10,000 or so on the foundations, electrical and drywall. Even including the new roof, Freeman estimates the whole project has cost less than $50,000.

This year, in preparation for the launch of the Dancing in Gumboots book and the 100 years eventr, Wonder Womem volunteers did landscaping with fruits trees and sunflowers; they removed rocks, pulled weeds and kept watering all summer long.

Freeman anticipates that rentals of the Stolen Church for weddings, yoga classes, meetings and other small functions will eventually make it a profitable venture.

The community association has a small membership that survives through its rental of the main hall, a small grant-in-aid for insurance from the Comox Valley Regional District, a summer farmer’s market and fundraising spearheaded by Freeman and consultant Dawn Ringrose.

But changes are coming.

Kymme Patrick’s TheatreWorks for the Performing Arts is in the process of moving her production and teaching school from Tin Town to the Merville Hall. The company provides theatre programs for youth and has been instrumental in using theatre as an educational tool with schools and organizations in the Comox Valley.

And they have fenced a large plot of their land for a future community garden. It already has water access and piles of skyrocket compost waiting for gardeners to spread and enhance the soil.

 

 

 

 

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Enter your email address to subscribe to the Decafnation newsletter.

More
Did the Comox Town Council pay their CAO $350,000 just to go away? Why?

Did the Comox Town Council pay their CAO $350,000 just to go away? Why?

by | Oct 18, 2019

Winter is coming  |  George Le Masurier photo

Did the Comox Town Council pay their CAO $350,000 just to go away? Why?

By

“Nothing makes me more nervous than people who say, ‘It can’t happen here.’ Anything can happen anywhere, given the right circumstances.”
— Author Margaret Atwood, quoted in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.)

 

The firing of Chief Administrative Officer Richard Kanigan is just one part of the turmoil surrounding the Town of Comox. And it might not even be the town’s most expensive headache.

Unhappy public works employees, false allegations carelessly publicized, two expensive Supreme Court lawsuits, a road project that won’t end and a fired CAO walking away with a pile of cash.

Comox Town Council must have been desperate to get rid of their long-time CAO. According to a reliable source within town hall, councillors gave him a whopping severance package totalling $350,000.

Council members aren’t talking about why or how much, and definitive confirmation of the amount won’t come until at least the town releases its 2019 financial statements. But our source is somebody who would know.

The provincial Public Sector Employers Act generously caps severance pay at 18 months after five years of service. That only applies to executives in health authorities, K-12 and post-secondary education institutions and Crown corporations. It doesn’t apply to municipalities. Small towns like Comox should be much further down the pay-out scale.

But even on that basis, Kanigan’s 2018 salary of $140,028, plus $8,056 in expenses, would have put his golden parachute around $210,000.

So what was the extra $140,000 for?

Did Kanigan have some good buddies in high places who approved a sweet deal in his contract? Did counmcil just want him gone in a hurry and they didn’t have a strong enough case to warrant or withstand a protracted wrongful dismissal suit? Did they pay him extra so some dirty laundry didn’t get hung out publicly? We don’t know.

One thing we do know is that Kanigan’s firing had nothing to do with the fake allegations that the town’s public works employees were harassing Highland High School students. That story should have never been splashed across the front page of the local newspaper. It was an anonymous letter and the paper did no investigation that corroborated any of the allegations.

It was probably written by someone with a motive to cast nefarious suspicions on public works employees, and it wasn’t worth the space or time spent on it.

That said, there have been personnel problems in the town’s public works department that may yet end in the courts. And the basic road reconstruction of Noel Avenue has taken way too long — so far, all summer and most of the fall. It continues to disrupt a private school and a residential neighborhood.

Somebody seriously miscalculated something.

Kanigan’s departure also creates some problems for the town. Foremost, it makes the town’s petition to the BC Supreme Court to alter Mack Laing’s trust agreement quite a bit more tenuous. The town wants to tear down Laing’s iconic home, called Shakesides, and spend the famous naturalist’s money on other things.

But only two people have submitted affidavits to the court defending the town against the mountain of evidence compiled by the Mack Laing Heritage Society: Richard Kanigan and former finance direct Don Jacquest. And guess what? Neither of them are still employed by the town.

That alone might not be fatal to the case. But what if the BC Attorney General’s office suddenly realized that among the hundreds of pages of documents submitted by the Mack Laing Society there was evidence of questionable handling of procedure and critical information? And what if that also happens to be something similar to the reasons council fired their CAO and paid him a king’s ransom to keep whatever it is a secret?

Last spring, the Attorney General requested a hiatus in the Mack Laing court case. That delay has now turned into five months and counting.

What makes that so odd was Comox Mayor Russ Arnott’s anxiousness to settle the matter. He railroaded a quasi public hearing last March to rubber-stamp the town’s plan, although he forgot to consult with the K’omoks First Nation. And then the mayor was in such a rush to get back into the courtroom that he didn’t even want to finish the 90-day abeyance agreed to by council.

Yet, here we are eight months later, going on nine, and no court dates are scheduled. No negotiations are taking place. Nothing. It’s dead air.

Except, of course, there’s the matter of the huge legal bill the town rang up trying — and failing — to keep the Mack Laing Heritage Society evidence out of the Supreme Court’s hands. That bill could be getting close to what Kanigan’s golden parachute should have been.

And then there’s the matter of the $250,000 lawsuit over the town polluting Golf Creek and failing to take corrective measures in how its deals with stormwater, despite repeated recommendations from more than one consulting firm.

So, who knows what’s really going on? But it has begun to look like a more deeply rooted problem.

 

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Enter your email address to subscribe to the Decafnation newsletter.

More