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Kate Maddigan, CCEDA’s new Economic Development Officer

The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) recently hired Kate Maddigan as its new Economic Development Officer (EDO). 

Colin Funk, the President of CCEDA, explained, “I have known Kate pretty much the entire time I’ve been on Cortes, I think I’m coming up to my 10th summer here. I’ve been on a few boards with her when I was active with Friends of Cortes Island (FOCI). We live pretty close together in the south end of the island. So like many, we bump into each other at the store or on the trails and such.”

Cortes Currents asked Maddigan about some of the work she has done in the community.

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Mansons Landing: Project Manager needed for the Village Commons

The Cortes Island Foundation is seeking a Project Manager to oversee development at the Village Commons, in downtown Mansons Landing. This is a two year position, expected to take about 24 hours a week and pays between $35 and $40 an hour. 

“We at the Cortes Island Community Foundation are really excited to be able to offer a job and to attract someone into this awesome role as Project Manager for the Cortes Island Village Commons development,” explained Executive Director Manda Aufochs Gillespie (MAG). 

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Salvaging the sacred from climate disaster

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The floodwaters rose swiftly and silently inside Nicole Norris’s family home and other residences of the Halalt First Nation on Vancouver Island when a storm unleashed a furious deluge of rain in November 2021. 

Her brother, asleep in the home’s ground-floor suite, awoke when his leg, hanging off the side of the bed, became submerged by overflow from the Chemainus River, said Norris, an Indigenous planning officer for the B.C. Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness. 

“Our home took on four feet of water in the basement. There was no sound to it,” said Norris, also known as Alag̱a̱mił. 

“Instantly, he yelled for my daughter and they were able to start pulling things from the basement.” 

Not everything of value escaped unscathed, said Norris, a regalia maker, weaver and cultural knowledge holder. 

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Design concept for the Village Commons in Mansons Landing

The Cortes Community Economic Development Association (CCEDA) released their site design concept for the ‘Village Commons,’ in Mansons Landing, last week. This is the fruition of a public consultation process which actually began in 2004, more than a decade before CCEDA purchased the property. In today’s interview, project leader Kate Maddigan talks about the six months of community meetings and input that led to the current design.

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