Editor’s note: Cortes Island’s Director was among those whose vote decided the issue in in all three of the following items.

“So in 1981 the Clash put out their classic single, ‘Should we stay, or should we go?’ and here I am with you, 41 years later asking you the same question. Should we stay with this initiative or should we take no action and leave it alone,” said Shaun Koopman, Protective Services Coordinator for the Strathcona Regional District.
He was telling the Board about the results of a recent survey in the Outer Discovery Islands, but he could have been talking about any of three Area C initiatives discussed at the Jan 11 meeting.
Surge Narrows Volunteer Fire Brigade
In this case, the question was whether to create a volunteer fire brigade to service the Outer Discovery Islands. There was a fire on Sonora Island and another on Read Island during 2018.
This is a sparsely settled region, which cannot afford most of the equipment associated with fire departments. The current plan calls for three volunteer crews with a few pumps and simple hand tools stored in strategic locations. The total cost to local taxpayers would start at about $50,000 a year and lessen every year.

Shaun Koopman: “We had about a 45% return response rate on the surveys.
- 40 of those constituents want us to move forward with this service right away.
- 27 of them wanted more consultation, either through meetings or establishing a steering committee.
- 15 of them wanted us to do nothing.”
Chief Administrative Officer David Leitch: “So just a little context with that, if you will. There’s some issues obviously with wildfires out in communities in the past, and then we get folks approaching the board and saying, Hey, look, that was a tragedy. We didn’t have the infrastructure. Can you look at exploring a fire service out there? So we say, happy to do that. The board supports that we go out and do the study, the survey comes back kind of lukewarm, what do we do? So this is where we are with the fire brigade and Surge Narrows and looking for board direction.”

Robyn Mawhinney, Regional Director for Area C: “I would like to move that the Regional District continue to investigate the Surge Narrows Wildfire Brigade Initiative with a steering committee of nominated Outer Discovery Islands community members, and that a further report be prepared following the conclusion of those investigations.”
Chair Mark Baker: “Do I have a second?”
Director Whalley seconded the motion.
“Discussion,” continued Baker. “All in favor, … opposed? Seeing none, the motion is carried.”
The CT Wharves
The board’s second decision pertained to the wharves at Owen Bay on Sonora Island, Surge Narrows on Read Island, and Port Neville on the northern shore of the Johnstone Strait.
Leitch explained, “Eight years ago, I guess, Transport Canada was looking to divest a number of wharves to all kinds of areas. The carrot they dangled in front of communities was, we’ll give you a bunch of capital money to upgrade those. So Area C bid on that. We received several million dollars for three wharves in area C, but a condition of receiving that money was that we establish a wharf service. Their thought process was, we’ll give you the capital money, but you have to operate and maintain them so they don’t run into disrepair.”
“The previous area director was reluctant to create the wharf service, and the clock has just been ticking. Now we’re down to a couple years and if we don’t do that capital work, we have to give the money back.”
“I think we had some communication errors in the community and how they understood the wharf service. There was a large petition against it and I think we’re going to improve our communications to the community and take another shot at seeing if they will support it. If they don’t, money goes back to Transport Canada and the wharves get no upgrades.”

The board was presented with three options:
- A – seek elector assent through a vote, but the ability to exercise this option has expired.
- B – abandon the service and return the funding to Transport Canada
- C – develop a new service that will be seen more favourably by Area C ratepayers.
Mawhinney: “I would like to move option C that we develop a new service establishing a bylaw that will be seen more favorably by ratepayers and that this may require additional consultation with users and other interested parties, which will be conducted from the outset to ensure that identified objectives of the service can be met by the Regional District.”
Campbell River Director Doug Chapman agreed: “I support option C. It’ll give us time to more clearly evaluate the financial cost and how this is going to run. I think we will be be surprised at the cost it is going to take to keep this running.”
“Any further discussion?” asked Chair Baker.
Once again, Director Whalley seconded the motion.

“All in favor?” asked Baker. “Opposed? … Seeing none, option C has passed.”
Quadra Links
The third decision was whether to grant Quadra Links the rezoning it needs to build a 21 spot RV Park on Quadra Island.
While both of the previous projects called for more information, this time all four rural directors agreed to abort the project.
Director Mawhinney explained, “This application has been of significant interest to many Islanders. There were over 700 pages of documents, which included hundreds of submissions. I read every one.”
“Thank you to the Islanders, including many neighbors of the application for being involved in the process. Themes from the hundreds of submissions made clear that some islanders value golfing as a recreational activity, while many more have concerns for Quadra’s infrastructure and its ability to support more tourism from oversized vehicles.”
“In the public comment record narrow rural roads, additional ferry pressure and water concerns were top of mind for those who took the time to engage. Quadra Links did consider public input and made changes to their original application, and I have no doubt that Quadra Links would be a good neighbor as many of the positive submissions indicated.”

“However, in this case, Quadra’s appetite for additional summer RV traffic and balancing the needs of year round residents with summer tourism outweighs the good neighbor argument for me. I will be voting against this motion.”
Baker: “Thank you. Any further discussion? … Go to vote”
The deciding vote was on whether the two bylaws associated with Quadra Link’s application, numbers 432 and 433, should be given a third reading.
As this pertained to Quadra Island, only the four electoral directors could vote.
Baker: “Just electoral opposed: all four Directors. Thank you. The motion is defeated.”

Top image: Smoke from the 2018 Read Island Fire – Photo by Bob Katzko
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