Archive for March 2016
Bayside’s leaky roof to be fixed by summer
March 11, 2016 | 
Author “line and lines of buckets” in various rooms and corridors throughout the school, and said there are teachers who are having to dodge dripping water in their classrooms.”
The situation worsened this month when mould was discovered the walls of the school. Several classrooms were made off-limits to the students as remediation took place.
Bayside Middle School’s PAC at the Legislature in February with MLAs Gary Holman and Rob Fleming
Understanding the Opportunities
Fassbender lays out the framework for discussions.
by Roger Stonebanks, citizen journalist
The BC government has laid out to local mayors its proposed “Framework for Discussion” for “governance and service integration in the Capital Region.”
Indeed, Community Minister Peter Fassbender said this about “future choices” – “the initiative is not about reaching a specific, unilateral outcome; it is about understanding the opportunities for service and governance integration in order to help local governments make future choices.” The lobby group Amalgamation Yes (Capital Region Municipal Amalgamation Society) has advocated “for an independent, unbiased study of our regional governance to be undertaken by the Province, leading to binding referendum.” The Community Charter requires an affirmative public vote in participating municipalities if two or more municipalities want to amalgamate.
“the initiative is not about reaching a specific, unilateral outcome; it is about understanding the opportunities for service and governance integration in order to help local governments make future choices.”
Fassbender, in asking for comment from mayors on his proposed framework which is headed Capital Integrated Services and Governance Initiative, set a timeline with a deadline of February 2016 for agreement, an announcement and launch in February/March, an interim progress report in May and final findings in the summer/fall. Fassbender said his proposed framework “outlines a potential approach, goals and roles for facilitated fact-finding to help identify the real issues and opportunities for Capital Region communities. This could be a basis for a Terms of Reference for a consultant.”
Fassbender commented that some mayors want more time to review his proposed framework. “I know that this is a busy time for us all and I want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to provide comments while at the same time ensuring that we are well placed to move forward in a thoughtful and timely way,” he replied.
Last May, Saanich council, under an initiative by previous Community Minister Coralee Oakes, voted to participate in a study of governance in the region “dependent upon the Terms of Reference and nature of the study proposed.” There was public input at committee of the whole on May 25, 2015. The current proposed Framework for Discussion has not been brought to a Saanich council.
SVO asked all four of the local mayors for comments on the Framework for Discussion and whether it will be brought before their respective councils as happened in Oak Bay and Esquimalt.
“is about understanding the opportunities for service and governance integration in order to help local governments make future choice.”
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North Saanich’s Mayor Finall told SVO that she responded to Fassbender requesting a further meeting of mayors to discuss the need for terms of reference for a consultant, using the Framework as a basis. “I suggested that a number of other matters needed preliminary consideration, including:
(a) willingness of municipalities to participate;
(b) costs of the consultation;
(c) responsibility for costs;
(d) time needed to collect information;
(e) how the consultant would report,” she said.
As for future choices, Fassbender said that the current initiative “is about understanding the opportunities for service and governance integration in order to help local governments make future choice.”
The provincial government’s role, he said, is to focus on facilitating the discussion among local governments, to retain/fund a consultant to work with local governments to collect information and to assist local governments in creating opportunities to increase understanding of the facts. As well, the facilitation process will help local governments identify “any underlying as well as common interests/opportunities towards service and governance integration.”
The proposed framework is a follow-up to a meeting Fassbender had with local mayors last Dec. 3.
You’ll find more stories on regional governance HERE.
Residents & Ratepayers Society Calls it a Day
One of the more active community associations in the Greater Victoria area is disbanding. The Residents and Ratepayers of Central Saanich Society, raised from the ashes of the Central Saanich Ratepayers’ Association in 2009, failed to elect an executive board at its recent Annual General meeting, and so cannot continue to operate.
In its seven year of existence, RRoCSS sued the Municipality of Central Saanich for acting contrary to the Official Community Plan (OCP); led the fight to prevent the Peninsula Co-Op from developing a piece of rural land at the corner of West Saanich and Keating X Road; spoke out against densification proposals; held seven all-candidates meetings; and protested the Senanus pipeline project.
“It’s too bad. RRoCSS did a lot of good in its time.”
Former president Ian Cameron is forthright in his analysis of the reason for the demise. “It had problems from the start,” Cameron says. “I was asked to chair the inaugural meeting. Of the 40 people who showed up, 25 to 30 were worried that the last election had elected a development-minded council, and they wanted to put a brake on. The rest of the people wanted to make Central Saanich a better place to live, by welcoming newcomers, having picnics and pot-luck dinners, and so on.”
The new society soon found itself embroiled in a contentious issue. Local farmer Ian Vantreight, who had bought out his brother’s share in the various family holdings, wanted to subdivide a 15 HA rocky hilltop right on the border of North Saanich. The application was contrary to the OCP and RRoCSS decided to take action by suing the municipality to ensure that the OCP was honoured. The judge ruled that in spite of what the B.C. Local Government Act says, councils are not bound by an OCP, and found in favour of the Municipality. The Society lost an appeal.
Cameron is somewhat bitter about that case. “A lot of the impetus for going to court came from people who don’t live in Central Saanich,” he says. “They lived in North Saanich, on lots that had been good farmland, but they didn’t want more houses next door. My objection wasn’t to the development per se, I objected to the fact that it was contrary to the OCP. As soon as the case ended, they all bailed out, and so did the folks who wanted to hold potluck dinners and picnics. The case cost so much money that the Society never recovered,” said Cameron. When it was over, membership declined from a high of 125 to about 30. Cameron paid for a large part of the cost himself.
Perhaps more picnics and potlucks balanced with the battles may have led to the membership taking their hands out of their pockets during the call for directors, one can only speculate.
The loss of this community resource is being felt across the municipality. Coun.
Alicia Holman (nee Cormier) said that it’s her hope that, “after a well-deserved rest, the volunteers who gave so much to RROCS will find the energy and community support to form a new association,” adding, “Central Saanich needs you!”
Coun. Zeb King spoke of the long history of this and preceding ratepayers’
organizations crediting work that his grandmother did with just such a organization in the 1970s for protecting the Saanich Inlet from various environmental threats. “The municipality really needs some sort of a cross-Central Saanich organization that takes on various challenges and issues from across the municipality. At present, there really is nothing that takes on various issues – not just single issues or issues around a specific area,” said King
Ian Cameron concludes by saying, “It’s too bad. RRoCSS did a lot of good in its time.”
Posted in Community News | 
Tags: alicia cormier, alicia holman, central saanich, ian maxwell, ratepayers, RRoCSS, society, Zeb King | 
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Churchill, Cold War, Avro Arrow & Quest
A visit with Sidney historian author, editor, and impersonator, Chris Gainor
by Sue Stroud, citizen reporter
How do you link Winston Churchill, the history of space travel and Terry Fox? Why through Chris Gainor of course, historian, journalist, author, communications director and impersonator.
When I sat down with Chris the first thing he told me was, “Fifty-four years ago today John Glenn went into space. I watched it on the TV in our basement in Calgary and was hooked. It was exciting, it was something brand new.”
This launch set the tone for Chris’s future, he became an authority on cold war politics and the technology it spawned.
The United States developed the Atlas rocket as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to carry nuclear warheads and that rocket became the starting point for many
space projects. President Kennedy, spurred on by his failed Bay of Pigs invasion and the multiple successes of Soviet space science, pledged his nation to land a man on the moon. “This was one of those rare eras in history where everything converged, it created the perfect setting for the Apollo 11 moon landing.”
Chris acquired his MA in Space Studies through the University of North Dakota, he heard about this online opportunity via Quest: The History of Spaceflight Quarterly which he now edits.
As a journalist with the Vancouver Sun, he co-wrote a series with Tim Padmore on the medical treatment of Terry Fox which won a National Newspaper Award.
For a time he was NDP caucus communications director.
Chris worked with the NDP caucus when they were both in government and in opposition. He also worked in communications for the Hospital Employees Union (HEU) before he went on to get his Ph. D at the University of Alberta, studying the history of space technology with Dr. Robert Smith.
Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield & Chris Gainor
Chris is an author of four books, most notably Who Killed the Avro Arrow (2007) and Arrows to the Moon (2001) which tells the story of the Canadian and British aerospace engineers hired by NASA after the Avro Arrow program was shut down in 1959.
In 1980 he was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena with Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto, Carl Sagan, Ray Bradbury and others to watch as Voyager as it flew by Saturn. It was another exquisite moment.
Chris is now First Vice-President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and spends much of his time at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at The Centre of the Universe on Little Saanich Mountain. He credits MLA Lana Popham for her tireless efforts in the fight to keep it open after cuts by the federal government in 2014. He is also a fellow of the British Interplanetary Society the oldest space exploration advocacy organization in the world.
“The history of space exploration is undergoing change,” Chris says, “it’s time to reflect on the role of race and gender. It’s time to de-colonize our thinking.”
NASA recently hosted actress Nichelle Nichols, best known as Star Trek’s Lt. Uhuru, on its Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to help promote interest in space science. She has been active with NASA since the TV series ended helping recruit women and minorities. As Chris takes on the editorship of the Quest he is hoping the magazine will begin to reflect these changes. Chris has one caution for us in this age of looking to the stars to escape the mess we’ve left behind, “if we screw it all up with climate change, there’s no time and no chance to move into space.”
Where does Winston Churchill fit in? Well, when Chris was a reporter in Vancouver he attended a Hallowe’en party dressed as Churchill. He’d spent some time learning Churchill’s voice by listening to a recording of John Diefenbaker imitating Churchill. Les Leyne, another reporter he knew heard of this and invited Chris to play Churchill at his annual Toast to Churchill in the Mayor’s Grove at Beacon Hill Park.
So if some January day you see a man with a bowler hat and a big cigar strolling into the park stop a moment and say hello to Chris Gainor.
And whatever you’re doing May 14th, 2016 Chris has you beat. He’ll be spending Astronomy Day in Burlington, Wash at a reunion of the Apollo 8 astronauts.
