a) Election of Chair -- it is my expectation that Al Richmond (Area 'G' Director) will be re-acclaimed for another year as CRD Chair which would see him serve his 5th consecutive term at the head of the Cariboo Regional District. In order to break the record of present CRD Vice-Chair (and Area 'A' Director) Ted Armstrong's 8 year run as CRD Chair - Al Richmond would need to run again for Area 'G' Director in 2014 and remain Chair until 2018 which is entirely possible as I don't see any evidence, to date, that would lead me to believe Al Richmond is looking at getting out of politics
b) Cariboo RD CAO Janis Bell to bring forward a 'Recruitment and Retention' Policy report to maintain funding at $120,000 level until 2015 at which time a review is to take place whether or not to continue the policy beyond 2015 - view here
c) More upgrades at Deni House - view here
d) Area 'D' Director Deb Bischoff raises a concern about consistency of flags at Cariboo RD owned buildings. View here
e) Competing requests for letters of support in regards to the WL Community Forest near Big Lake. Interesting that WL Indian Band Councillor Heather McKenzie says Area 'F' Director Joan Sorley may be in a 'moral' conflict of interest regarding a request from the Big Lake community which asks for a mediation-type process in regards to the WL Community Forest. If so - I think Director Sorley should say then "Guilty as charged" and then continue to advocate for Big Lake at the Board. There is no 'conflict' in my mind as Sorley doesn't stand to benefit personally or financially and doesn't own property (as far as I know) in the proposed WL Community Forest area. View the request from Sugarcane here and from the Big Lake community here. My own view is that the Board should simply stay 'out of the fray' and endorse no request for a 'letter of support' - either from Big Lake or Sugarcane. This will allow the Board to publicly avoid taking sides on this matter and would send a message to both sides of:
This is a dispute clearly between the Big Lake/Miocene communities & WL Indian Band/City of Williams Lake and these parties need to solve the issue of the WL Community Forest amongst themselves and leave the Regional Board out of it
Personally - the Big Lake/Miocene communities makes a more compelling argument on the WL Community Forest issue than Sugarcane/Williams Lake does... a Community Forest was supposed to and is intended to 'bring communities together' and not split communities apart. Hence, why the Xat'sull and Likely Community Forest has worked out very well for a significant period of time
f) As a result of the Nov 24th referendum to approve - the Board will be adopting the new WL Rural Contracted Fire Protection Service Bylaw. In the meantime - negotiations (if they haven't started already) will commence to set a contracted price between the City of WL/Cariboo RD for fire services for residents' in parts of CRD Areas D, E, F covered by this new fire protection service.
View the entire Cariboo RD Board Agenda for Friday here
No comments:
Post a Comment