Community Decision Making – Update June 4, 25

Thanks to those who have responded to the survey I put out a couple of weeks ago. At this point, 77% have suggested that a Local Community Commission is an idea they’d like to pursue. Of course I have only received 31 total responses so it’s definitely not a majority of the community. I’ve included the survey again below and would appreciate your quick response if you have not yet filled it out.
My original article is here if you would like to review it.

At our EAD meeting (just the Electoral Area Directors), we discussed a number of items, one being Community Empowerment or local decision making. There was not unanimous support for recommending to the full board that we do a study on the Local Community Commission strategy. But it was passed (4 to 3) that we recommend to the board to have staff do a study on the possibilities of an LCC. So now this has to come before the whole board to discuss and vote to actually do the study. It is not a slam-dunk this will pass.

As with any change in the status-quo, there is resistance. The concerns I can see from the board are:

• How much staff time will the LCC take?
• What will it cost and how will that be funded?

My thoughts are that there certainly will be staff time required; some administration, finance and communication. This will be offset by reduced staff time in the LCC area of control, ie. Economic Development/Tourism promotion or Community Parks and Recreation.  As far as the costs, those will be funded from those services budgets that are already in existence (EcDev & Parks), just as they are now. So as much as this is a change in the way things are done, there won’t be much difference in CSRD or Community resource needs.

I know the question often comes – what’s it going to cost me? As this is very early in the process there’s no definitive answer to that question. In considering it, I might suggest that managing our parks with local resources will reduce costs as we will likely contract this service locally instead of using CSRD union members. There will be some costs for the committee itself which should be offset by reduced admin at the CSRD. Without taking that step to dig deeper, we just won’t know.

One concern I have really comes down to our community members.
Do we have 4 people ready to be elected to this Community committee?

I welcome your thoughts and comments.