Highlands pioneers wanted for reunion

The Highland Heritage Park Society is planning a Pioneer Reunion for mid-October.

We are seeking descendants of Highlands district pioneers to invite to the event. We welcome any information that will lead us to members of families that settled in the Highlands in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Please contact Daphne Allen by phone at 250-478-7338 or e-mail: daffjim@telus.net

Daphne Allen

Highland Heritage Park Society

Recreation planning a complicated business

Like many families on the West Shore we spend a great deal of time at the Juan de Fuca Recreation centre using the various facilities.

Recently I attended a coaches meeting for one of the users of this facility. A fellow coach in the audience, having recently relocated here from the Mainland was commenting on the fact that games and practices get cancelled here at the first sign of bad weather. He asked what he thought was an obvious and well-meaning question — why don’t you just build a shared field with the school board, make it gravel so you can use it all the time and have it operational right now?

This similar sentiment seems to be propagating around the velodrome closure and its related infield use. Seemingly cheap and simple solutions are popping up at council meetings around the West Shore.

However when you throw into the mix the notion of a handful of cyclists and hundreds of field sport athletes (soccer, lacrosse, football etc.), a recreation society that consists of five member municipalities and an electoral area each with its own operating budgets, and a school board that operates under its own budget with purse strings controlled by the province, the solution to these recreational conundrums is far from simple.

It is a complicated mix of land availability, zoning, finances and user groups all seemingly wanting the same thing — to provide healthy opportunities in an affordable and accessible manner.

It is important that we take the time in the next while leading to both the municipal and provincial elections to become better informed.

How does your own municipality and school board view and plan for these options? How do they budget for them? How can we successfully merge municipal, provincial and private funds to benefit the community?

Recreation planning affects us all, even those that do not use the facilities — it could be your taxes that pay for future changes or your neighbourhood that becomes the location of a new facility.

Prior to these upcoming elections it is important to be well-informed and equally important to cast your vote.

Michelle Mahovlich

Highlands

—Michelle Mahovlich is a Highlands councillor. She is not running for re-election in the municipal elections this November.

Rec directors, owners separate for a reason

Re: Rec centre referendum withdrawn, Sept. 17, 2008.

A recent Gazette article incorrectly reported that Metchosin turned down the West Shore Parks and Recreation society request for a $10-million borrowing referendum.

In fact, only Highlands turned it down and WSPRS withdrew its request two weeks before Metchosin was scheduled to debate the issue.

An accompanying editorial supported Colwood Coun. Dave Saunders’ contention that WSPRS should have the ability to override the current operators agreement which requires unanimous consent from the owners (the five West Shore municipalities) on financial, land and improvement issues.

This type of contract provision is standard with any agreement where there is joint municipal ownership of assets. With the West Shore recreation centre, the owners contract WSPRS to operate and maintain the facility only.

WSPRS directors do not speak for their municipalities nor can the municipal councils instruct or direct them. Their authority is limited to administering the facility and must seek the owner’s approval before allocating funds or altering venues.

The agreements are structured this way to prevent non-elected representatives from one municipality financially burdening taxpayers from another municipality without their consent.

The problems at the recreation centre are not a result of the operating policy but rather with the lack of understanding of WSPRS directors of this fundamental principal.

My stadium proposal, which Coun. Saunders is so anxious to dismiss, could solve many of those problems including the costly legal morass that WSPRS has dragged our municipalities into.

John Ranns

Metchosin Mayor

B.C. Liberals delivering on goods as promised

The recent announcement by Premier Gordon Campbell regarding the Coquihalla Highway should serve as a sign to those naysayers out there; the premier and the Liberal Party do listen.

When we said taxes were high, they dropped them; when we said we were concerned about the environment, they acted; when local governments asked for tax relief, they delivered. When our government recognizes there is a problem, they do something about it. While the opposition rants and complains, the Liberals get things done. Kudos to the premier for listening to our concerns.

Geoff Sharpe

Victoria

LETTERS