Tag Archives: Mark Vonesch

Clothing, Waste

A regional model: free stores and other waste reducing facilities

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At a time when the average Canadian spends more than $3,000 a year on clothing, many Cortes Island residents are satisying their personal needs and disposing of clothing through the local freestore. Similarly, Creative Deconstruction has supplied materials used in ten new homes on Cortes Island. Mark Vonesch, the Regional Director for Cortes Island, suggests that centres like this may offer a model that needs to be promoted throughout the Comox and Strathcona Regional Districts. 

“I’m just getting back from the Comox Strathcona Waste Management Board meeting. This is a board that I sit on as a director, and we provide guidance and leadership to the waste management services in the Comox Valley District and the Strathcona Regional Districts,” he explained. 

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Animals, Disaster, Politics

Chart added – Proposed Open Fire Ban; Moving towards a Dog Control Service

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Regional Director Mark Vonesch brought two Cortes Island motions before the SRD Board on Wednesday, September 13. Both were passed with no opposing votes. The first was to draw up an Open Burning Bylaw in the parts of Cortes Island within the South Cortes Fire Protection Area. However the electorate needs to approve the second item, a proposed Dog Control Service. 

Vonesch was on the way home, waiting in the ferry line-up at Heriot Bay, when he spoke with Cortes Currents:

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Housing

A remote Canadian island makes history in fight for affordable housing

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A remote Canadian island is breaking ground on a new way to buffer the negative effects short-term vacation rentals have on the housing crisis facing small, rural tourism-based communities. 

B.C.’s Cortes Island is making housing history as the first community in the province to tax short-term holiday rentals and have all the funds directed to affordable housing projects, said Mark Vonesch, the area’s Strathcona Regional District director. 

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Disaster, Politics

What’s happening with the Cortes Island Open Burning Bylaw?

There was a great deal of anger on Cortes Island when the province lifted the open campfire ban on June 21.  As Nancy Kendel wrote in the Tideline, “We have had basically NO RAIN since beginning of May, and our forests are tinder dry!” The ban was reimposed days later, but the underlying problem persists today. Cortes Island is part of the Coastal Fire Centre, and the regulations governing it are drawn up in a wetter climate.

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Indigenous Nations, Politics

SRD acknowledges Kwiakah and Tla’amin First Nations

The Kwiakah and Tla’amin First Nations are now recognized in Strathcona Regional District (SRD) territorial acknowledgements. The SRD added their names in response to strong requests from both nations. A series of motions to this effect were passed at the July 19 SRD Board meeting, in Campbell River.  

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