Regional District concerns

Regional District concerns

First, thank you to everyone who helped in the tremendous lobbying effort to get our Regional District to delay adopting the bylaws. I have complete confidence that the community will fully research and discover the best alert, dispatch and communications systems for our community and for the First Responders and Firefighters.

I do have other concerns about regional district services on Lasqueti:

There is apparently a plan to build a new, four-bay fire hall, next to the just-renovated current hall. I haven't heard any community discussion of this, and the few people I've asked don't seem to think that it's needed, and certainly that it's not a good use of financial resources, even if they come from a grant, or elsewhere. Karl and Wayne's idea for a lightweight, much less expensive shelter for emergency vehicles seems like a no-brainer. Both the Judith Fisher Health Centre and False Bay School are immediately adjacent to the fire hall, and can continue to provide meeting and training space when needed.

Having read most of the current documentation and reports on our fire department, I'm also concerned on which of the other things sometimes called "standards" might be determined to be necessary for us to meet. The fire department needs more volunteer firefighters. It has huge community support and appreciation, but it could probably use volunteer energy in other ways, too. (The Firefighters Picnic is coming up quickly.) We need to discuss the dispatch system and the proposed new firehall in the context of what might be really needed for the community over the next several decades, and what is the best use of our resources.

I've also heard that there is a plan to move the recycling centre to a piece of crown land, near the highways maintenance yard up Gline Road. I certainly understand the desire for more room, but moving it more than half-way down island, up a narrow road with poor-visibility hills and corners, doesn't seem like a good idea. Won't this require most people to drive the length of the island to deliver their recyclables? And then for the recyclables to be trucked a long distance to get off-island to be recycled? Would it not make more sense to keep it in the False Bay - Kilometer One area?  There are several properties for sale in this area. Spending money now to keep the waste-recycling from having to be moved up and down island for the next fifty years would probably be inexpensive and convenient by comparison.

(On the other hand, if the recycling centre is located inconveniently enough, more of us might start carrying our recycling back over to Vancouver Island, where we brought it from, because it's simpler and easier than taking it down island.)

We need to have community discussions on these (and probably other) issues. This is something that we should organize here on Lasqueti for ourselves, and not wait for PRRD staff to set up and run. We can do it more conveniently, inexpensively and faster, and of course should have them be as involved as they can be. That way, we'll have better decisions and community agreement with them, rather than having to react to decisions made for us in Powell River.

Please let me know what you think, especially if you think I've got anything (or everything) wrong.

--  Peter J

PS - for those who need or would like simple dialing for fire or ambulance, you can use an inexpensive phone with speed-dial buttons, and program and label one of them for our fire number 250-954-4432, and another for our ambulance number 250-248-3511.