In the segment of the March 13, 2019, Strathcona Regional District board meeting devoted to correspondence, Campbell River Mayor Andy Adams asked staff for clarification about a phrase used by one of Cortes Island’s better known anti-hall tax advocates. She described the proposed hall tax as using “public funds for private organizations.” It is good to see this kind of communication in the public record, where inaccuracies can be dealt with. The answers he received were adequate, but one of the island’s two hall managers was actually sitting in the spectator section directly behind Mayor Adams. Had he been given the opportunity to speak, this is how Howie Roman would have responded to the question, ” is Gorge Hall a private club?”
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.
The Southern Cortes Community Association presentation was next. Though we have exchanged emails, Julian Ayers and I have never met and I didn’t think to have someone point him out to me. Nor I did not tell him that the little black device on the lectern, that looks virtually identical to a remote, was actually my recorder. Consequently, you will hear a lot of paper shuffling throughout this presentation.
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.
