This is a COVID-19 news update for March 17, 2020. As of yesterday, there are 103 confirmed cases of COVID 19 in British Columbia. 8 of these are on Vancouver Island. The first was a Victoria. The seven most recent cases were reported yesterday. A Courtenay doctor confirmed that one of her patients is among them. While I have yet to see official confirmation, two sources have independently mentioned a case of COVID -19 in the Campbell River Hospital.
Continue reading COVID-19 News Update For March 17, 2020.Tag Archives: Gorge Hall
Our Area Is Preparing For COVID-19
More than 125,000 people have been infected with COVID-19, and 4,613 have died, since the virus was first identified last November. While the first reports are from abroad, on January 27 a Vancouver man returning from a business trip to China tested positive. As of yesterday, March 12, there were 53 confirmed cases in British Columbia. One of these is on Vancouver Island, where a man in his 60s is currently quarantined in his home. He and two other confirmed victims, from the Fraser Health Region, just returned from a tour in Egypt. With these reports moving closer, the Discovery Islands area is preparing for COVID-19
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Taxpayers For Community Halls: Yes on 341
(This is the full text of a mailer sent to all mailboxes on Cortes during the week of October 11th. This mailer was produced and distributed by a cross-island group of property owners and tax payers who support Bylaw 341.)
Our Community Halls Belong to Us All…
On Saturday, October 26, Cortes Islanders will finally get the opportunity to vote on an important question: Are we willing to support our Community Halls by paying for their core operating costs with a property tax service administered by the Strathcona Regional District?
We urge you to vote YES on this referendum.
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Cortes Is Different
Originally Published on the Cortes Tideline
By De Clarke
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.
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Cortes Community Consultation Meeting On Tax Service Referenda
By De Clarke
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.
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