The inaugural meeting of the new Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board occurs today. All of the incoming and re-elected Directors will be sworn in. Both of the two new Directors from our broadcast area, Mark Vonesch and Robyn Mawhinney, will be among them. Cortes Currents spoke to Mawhinney about her preparations to take office.
Continue reading Mawhinney prepares to become Area C’s new DirectorLast April, Cortes Island became part of an international monitoring project for Dungeness crab larvae. There were 20 light trap stations in the Salish Sea and 17 in the Puget Sound. Three of these traps were within our listening area. Surge Narrows School had a trap on Read Island. The Hakai Institute and Quadra Island community had another on Quadra Island. Kate Maddigan and Mike Moore coordinated volunteers looking after the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) trap in Cortes Bay.
Continue reading Monitoring Dungeness Crab larvae in Cortes Bay
There were at least 159 Cortes Island residents living in ‘unsheltered’ or ‘at risk’ conditions when they responded to the housing needs survey last spring. There was a smaller response on Quadra and the Outer Islands, so only 69 were identified. These are both low numbers. At one point during our interview Emma Wallace, who oversaw this project, suggested the actual number for Cortes might be 10% higher. So I guesstimate about 175 people in a population of about 1,100 are in unstable housing situations. (I do not believe there is enough data to make a serious guesstimate in Area C.)
Wallace is employed by the Rural Development Network, which was commissioned to do this study by the Campbell River & District Coalition to End Homelessness and the Urban Indigenous Housing and Wellness Coalition. In today’s program she gives a demographic sketch of the unsheltered and at risk population.
Continue reading Demographics of the ‘Unsheltered’ and ‘At Risk’ on Cortes and Quadra Islands
A tiny education program on Cortes has been getting a lot of media attention lately.
“We were featured on the National Observer with our local journalism initiative reporter, Rochelle Baker. She did a fabulous piece on this program that was picked up by the Vancouver Sun and then was picked up by some Vancouver radio stations and by the CBC. So as nearby as Cortes Currents and as now far away as the reach of CBC,” explained Manda Aufochs Gillespie, one of the organizers of the Cortes Island Academy.
Continue reading Why media like the Cortes Island Academy130 Cortes, Read and Quadra Island residents completed the Quadra ICAN rideshare survey, and another 36 responded to specific questions.
“Ride sharing is a really interesting alternative. It wasn’t the transportation solution that everyone is really looking for. I think it’s just a small part of trying to tackle this larger issue. If it works for a few communities that’s great, but it’s not ‘the’ answer,” explained Aaryn Perreault-Laird, who is overseeing the program.
Continue reading ICAN Rideshare survey may lead to a trial run next year
