How the EASC Committee is working together

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - One of the biggest stories coming out of the SRD may be the way the new Electoral Areas Services Committee (EASC) seems to be working together. It has only been a little more than five months since the election, but the deep personal divisions that were so apparent in the previous EASC committe are not there, at least not yet. Cortes Currents asked our two local Discovery Island Directors about this.

Mark Vonesch, Regional Director of Cortes Island, said, “I wasn't involved in the last administration, but there is a lot of teamwork between the Rural Directors. We talk a lot. We don't agree on everything, but we have relationships where we feel comfortable sharing our ideas and our thoughts and reflecting on each other's ideas. Generally there's a lot of cohesiveness and support for getting things done in our own communities.”

“Gerald Whalley, he's been such an interesting person to work with because his political values are quite different from mine. He doesn't really believe in climate change. He's a Trump supporter. Any tax or government intervention is overreach, but he's also been really supportive of me, of how to get things done. As long as I'm not trying to push things into his community, he's very happy and generous with his time to share with me on just bouncing ideas off in a realistic way of how to get things done in government.”

“One of my hopes for politics is that people who are different from each other can sit down and have conversations. We can hear each other. We can be okay with thinking differently and having different visions, and we can come to a place that is of compromise and working well together.”

Robyn Mawhinney lives across the waters on Quadra Island, “I haven't seen any friction. I haven't felt any friction. We're all there to work for the betterment of our communities. We listen and hear the will of our communities and arrive at the board table or the committee table, knowing those desires and hopefully able to represent those as well as being willing to think regionally.”

“I'm happy to support Director Rice and a bylaw to legalize having four chickens in backyards of Area D and Director Whalley to find a noise bylaw that works for the Sayward Valley and Director Vonesch’s Cortes Island Initiatives.”

MV: “I think politics at its best is when people who think differently and have different values can work together and support each other and be colleagues and be allies and in getting positive things done and for the people that we work.”

“I think it's important to recognize in politics that nobody is the same. There's never going to be a hundred percent consensus. I think the important thing is that we can hear each other. We can have empathy and understanding before each other, and we can make decisions that are best for everybody.”