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Welcome to the Cheer.fm podcast, Ask Salt Spring Answered.
After many Ask Salt Spring events, we sit down in our studio with Gail Baker's guest and review some of the key points discussed.
Welcome to Episode eight of Ask Salt
Spring Answered. This is a continuation of the LCC election candidates and Damian Inwood interviews
Brian Webster. Okay, I'm here with Brian Webster, who is one of the candidates for the local
community council. And we've just sat in a two hour all candidates meeting with I think one of the candidates for the local community council. And we've just sat in a two-hour all-candidates meeting
with, I think, 10 of the 15 candidates
to discuss the various issues in the upcoming election on May 27th.
Hi, Brian.
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, welcome to the studio here.
So, first of all, could you just tell me a bit about your background,
just for the voters?
Sure. I'm a farmer on Salt Spring,
been growing apples here since 2011, so pretty much bang on the 12th anniversary of coming
to Salt Spring. Before that, I lived in the Victoria area and worked as a consultant for
many years in communications, writing, editing, that sort of thing,
mostly for governments. And so coming to Salisbury was a big change for me. We planted a 3500 tree
certified organic apple orchard and opened a cidery a few years ago as well. And I've been busy with that and with participating in local governance related initiatives.
And so the local community commission is really a culmination of my volunteer involvement in trying to push for some enhancements to how we do local government here on Salisbury. Great and I think you said that
your experience on the Parks and Rec Commission I think says seven years. That's right. And
means that you know that's one of your probably your pet subjects as far as as far as areas of
the LCC that you would be involved in.
And you talked about the Harbour Walk as being a priority for you.
Just explain that to me a little bit more as to what you could do to get that project going.
Yeah, the project is actually really well positioned to get going.
So in a sense, it'll almost look like a big win for whoever is elected to the LCC because things will be able
to get underway relatively quickly. There's design work that's already happening at this point and
once the design work is done the statutory right-of-way that actually makes it legally possible to build the entire Harbour Walk will become
available. And so really the biggest challenges, one, will be to keep those processes going and
through to completion, and two, to come up with the funds to actually do the construction of the harbour walk.
And so that'll be a big task and certainly hope that there will be significant support
both from the community and from the higher levels of government in terms of helping pay
for the project.
I think it's very achievable and there's every reason to believe that that
project should finally, after the decades of waiting, should be able to move forward in a
pretty timely way. Now, I guess funding for that would come from the provincial government and from
the CRD's general pool rather than directly from taxpayers on Salt Spring?
CRD doesn't really have a general pool for projects like this, so probably not from there.
Provincial government, of course, does make available capital funding to local governments
on a fairly regular basis, as does the federal government.
So there are good
prospects there. There's also the possibility if that plus privately raised funds aren't sufficient.
Theoretically, at least an initiative could be taken to the voters to approve borrowing,
to be able to top up the budget and be able to complete
it and it would be interesting given the high level of support that there is in the community
to see whether there would be openness to doing that because obviously that would involve at least
a marginal increase in property taxes to be able to do it it's it's too early at this point to say how many dollars could potentially come
from which source, but those are the kinds of questions that I think will be on the table
pretty fast with the design work being done, or soon being done, and the right of way necessary
to actually go ahead and do it, being something that should be achievable
in a matter of months, not years,
you would think that the,
okay, so how much is it going to cost
and how are we going to pay for it?
Those questions should become pretty clear relatively soon.
So we might be facing a referendum on this issue
at some point in a future election.
Well, theoretically, that's possible.
I mean, personally, I'd be thrilled if the combination of community fundraising and funds from the other levels of government covered the full cost of it.
I don't know if that's realistic. I've heard that there are folks in the community who are really enthusiastic about the project, and there may be some significant private donors out
there who may contribute to it. The more of that there is, the less requirement there would need
to be looking to the local taxpayers. Okay, is there anything else you're particularly
passionate about? And is it an issue at the front of your mind in this coming election?
Yeah, there are lots of issues,
some of them within the realm of the Parks and Recreation area
that you mentioned and many of them outside of it.
You've probably noticed I think every single candidate is talking about housing. And while it's not explicitly included within the areas of responsibility of the LCC at the moment, it is quite clearly, if indirectly, in the responsibility the LCC has for economic sustainability or economic development. So that is sort of an entryway
right off the top for us to be talking about it from the start. I also favor establishing a new
service specifically for housing so that there would be some ongoing funding available
so that we could identify an organization on the island
to take the lead on housing,
to pull together all the many other agencies
that are involved with housing currently
or may get involved in the future
and show some leadership in pushing it forward.
And so I think that is a very high priority.
So would that be a housing authority?
We talked about that at some previous Ask Salt Spring So would that be a housing authority? We talked about that at
some previous Ask Salt Spring meeting. Not necessarily a housing authority. It could be,
but it doesn't have to be. It could be a registered non-profit that has good community representation
that took the lead. I think the decision on that is something that should be made in consultation with the folks
who are involved in the housing sector and issues on the island right now. So I don't want to
prejudge it. I know there are some people who are in favor of a housing authority, some people who
want to model a Salt Spring Housing Authority and what's
happened in Whistler where they've had a housing authority for quite a number of years. Our
community is quite different from Whistler. So I'm not sure that you could just look directly
at what they're doing and say we should do exactly that. i think uh the example of what's happening there
the examples of what's happening in couch and valley for example where there is a non-profit
that is funded through the regional district to take leadership on housing those kind of examples
definitely should be on the table and then we can figure out a real sort of made-in-Salt Spring approach, looking at the good work that's being
done elsewhere, and then factoring in the unique aspects of Salt Spring to come up with
a model that can really work for us. Okay, well, thanks, Brian, for coming in.
This is Damian Inwood coming to you from Chia.fm, the voice of the gulf islands