On Thursday, March 1st of this year -- the BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs/Housing launched a series of videos and other relevant information in advance of the 2018 Local Government elections, being held on Saturday, October 20th for Electoral Area Directors', School Trustees, Mayors and Councillors'
You can view the videos and other documentation here
Before the launch on March 1st - Staff from the Ministry showed a draft version of the videos at the January 30/31st Union of BC Municipalities Electoral Area Directors' Forum held in Richmond, BC.
An Electoral Area Director from the Cowichan Valley Regional District (south of Nanaimo) expressed his concern that the video was far too slanted towards Mayors'/Councillors' and literally nothing for the role of an Electoral Area Director. Ministry Staff at the time acknowledged the Electoral Area Director's concern. I too, at the time and still do, shared the Electoral Area Director's concern is the videos were/are far too slanted towards municipal elected officials (Mayors' and Councillors) and not enough for local elected officials from rural areas
Later that week (February 2nd) at the 2018 Local Government Leadership Academy's Annual Leadership Forum, also held in Richmond, BC - I participated in an evening roundtable conversation on local governance with local elected officials including Comox Valley Regional District's Electoral Area 'C' Director Edwin Grieve who vented that provincial bureaucrats did nothing to hide their disdain at rural elected officials, like him, for a local project in his Area but wouldn't do the same for local elected officials like Mayors' and Councillors' - likely because there are literally thousands of Mayors' and Councillors' locally elected every 4 years in BC and they represented the very vast majority of British Columbians whilst the 155 Electoral Area Directors' in BC (including myself) represent vast unincorporated (rural) areas in BC but a minority of BC residents' and suggested that these provincial bureaucrats and their Ministers' should be "re-educated" about local governments' in the rural areas - a suggestion I fully agree with
To that end -- this past weekend, I drafted a letter to BC's Minister of Municipal Affairs/Housing, Hon. Selina Robinson, make the above noted points and will be sending to her this morning
You can read the letter here. As soon as I have a reply, I will share that here
~SF
No comments:
Post a Comment