On February 10, 2020, the Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI) posted a notice, on the Tideline, about the installation of new rails along the trail at Mansons Spit. They also invited local residents to a broom bash on the Spit, Saturday, March 28th, 10am- 1pm. According to Executive Director Helen Hall, FOCI started maintaining Cortes Island parks twenty years ago.
Continue reading FOCI: Maintaining Cortes Island Parks For 20 YearsTag Archives: SRD Board
Quadra Island Festival of Chamber Music
Quadra Island has a world class Festival of Chamber Music. The festival’s Co-founder and Artistic Director, Phillip Hansen, is currently the principal cellist with the Orquestra Filarmonica de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and has been featured in concert halls throughout Europe, the Far East and Americas. The other musician’s resumes are just as impressive. Glancing through them, I found myself continually exclaiming in disbelief, “On Quadra Island!” According to Catherine Smith, President of the Quadra Island Chamber Music Society, our rural lifestyle is part of the appeal that draws talent of this calibre. The Quadra Island Festival of Chamber Music could also be a poster child for grants-in-aid.
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Thank-you SRD, But There Is Currently No One To Negotiate With You
The opinions expressed in this report are my own and not necessarily shared by any organization, or committee, I belong to.
It has been more than a year since 14 disgruntled Cortes residents attempted to change the outcome of the 2018 election with a lawsuit that the Supreme Court of British Columbia eventually dismissed as having “no basis.” Now at least one of the former plaintiffs has joined a group of anonymous Cortes residents who informed the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board of an alleged secession plot. Twenty minutes of the board’s Feb 26, 2020, meeting was consumed with this nonsense. Kudos to Chair Michele Babchuk and the other Directors who recognized it as such. However the suggestion that SRD receive a delegation, or have staff look into ways to help Cortes find a more democratic form of local government, is premature. There is currently no one to negotiate with them.
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Hornby Island’s Style Of Government
Hornby Island has roughly the same number of inhabitants as Cortes Island. They have similar problems with volunteer burn-out, partisanship on public issues, disruptive personalities, and gossip. Reina LeBaron, Hornby Island Residents and Ratepayers Association’s (HIRRA) Administrator, said this is usual in small communities. Some disgruntled Hornby residents even complained to their Regional Director, but the discontent has not festered on Hornby, like it has on Cortes. To some extent I suspect this may be because of Hornby Island’s style of government.
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How Community Decisions Were Made
The process behind a revision of Cortes Island’s Community Plan has been cited as an extreme example of how community decisions were made. According to the most recent (2012) version, “During the winter of 1983 and the spring of 1984, the APC (Advisory Planning Commission) and other community volunteers proceeded to assess the current community feelings concerning zoning regulations through an extensive questionnaire, including the tabulation and reporting of the results to the community, conducting seven question and answer evenings in homes throughout the island …”
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