SRD sent four representatives to Cortes island by water taxi on June 6th to conduct a community consultation meeting on two tax service referenda: the long-delayed and controversial hall tax, and the first-responders training tax. Present at the meeting from SRD were: Chair Michele Babchuk, CAO David Leitch, Tom Yates (Senior Manager), and Aniko Nelson [Parks and Planning Manager]. Present at the meeting from Cortes were approximately 80 community members.
On show at Mansons Landing’s April 12th “EV mini-faire” were not only full size E-cars, but several exciting E-bike options. Owners confirm that modern battery technology is delivering E-bikes that can handle the hilly roads and rough pavement of Cortes Island.
During all the fire and fury over Cortes’ proposed “Hall Tax,” it occurred to me that the problem of increasing difficulty in operating and maintaining our Community Halls can hardly be unique to Cortes. Surely other communities are facing similar challenges; it would be worth finding out how (or whether) they were solving the problem. So I set out to investigate the funding basis of as many coastal community halls as possible, in communities not too different from our own: smallish, rural-ish, remote-ish.
On the evening of February 25, 2019 at 7pm, the Whaletown Community Club AGM was held at the Whaletown Hall. It was attended by approximately 30 members in addition to the sitting Board.
