SRD Board votes against funding local community action planning

Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - At their February 9th meeting, the SRD Board voted against setting aside $50,000 to support community climate action planning initiatives.

The motion was brought forward by Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson, who suggested the project fit into their strategic objectives for 2022.

“When I compare the budget commentary and service goals here to our strategic priorities, this was the one that really stood out to me as a strategic priority that could be very specifically budgeted in resource for in support of existing initiatives that are happening in our communities either that are undertaken by a municipality or social profit sector or some combination thereof that are struggling to find funds to do these climate action plans,” she explained. “If we were able to put aside a very modest amount for a original district of our size, that communities could reach out to the regional district for some collaborative matching funds to support their already ongoing work, I think that would be a very small way of leveraging excellent work that's already underway.”

Regional Director Brenda Leigh spoke against the motion, “ I think that if we are committed to climate action, then we should have established a climate action committee that would oversee how any initiatives are implemented from our regional district. I’m not in favour of what director Anderson's proposing, which is to just cast $50,000 out into the air for non-profit groups to access funding. To me that's just like grants and aid. There's no real control over how the funds are spent.” If they decide, say just an example on Cortes, if they want 20,000 to support the old growth flying squad or whatever it's called. Will they get that money? How will they spend it? And how will it be accounted for?”

She reiterated the need for the SRD to have serious policy, goals and objectives for a program like this. They need to prioritize the initiative and control the funds and prioritize the initiatives.

Since they started holding meetings online, the board found the quickest method of tallying votes is to start by counting people who are opposed.

The minutes of this meeting list 8 directors voting against the motion ( Andy Adams, Mark Baker, Colleen Evans, Ron Kerr, Brenda Leigh, Sean Smyth Brad Unger and Gerald Whalley).

If you listen carefully, you can hear one more opposing vote in the audio: Claire Moglove.

That leaves five five directors who were presumably in favour of the motion: Noba Anderson, Jim Abram, who seconded the motion, Julie Colborne, Martin Davis and Kevin Jules

The motion was defeated, by a 9 to 5 vote.