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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.
Hi and welcome to episode seven of
Ask Salt Spring Answered. Damian Inwood sits down and talks to Kylie Coates, one of the LCC
election candidates. Right, I'm here with Kylie Coates, who's one of the candidates in the upcoming
LCC elections on Salt Spring, and we've just sat through a two-hour debate
hosted by Ask Salt Spring where we had 10 of the 15 candidates plus Gary Holman in attendance.
So Kylie, welcome and perhaps tell me a little bit about your background.
My name is Kylie Coates. I was born and raised here on Salt Spring.
My family has been living on the Gulf
Islands for 104 years. And my father was an electrician. So I became an electrician at a
fault. And the last 10 years, I've worked for the Department of Defense, doing security and
communications technology. Okay, great. And I think it's fair to say that whenever
you've been asked what your priorities are you've said housing which isn't
directly part of the LCC mandate but perhaps you can tell me a bit more about
that and what you hope to achieve in the housing field if you are elected. The CRD
has over 200 offices that are currently available all over the CRD direct region.
Salt Spring has about 11 on Salt Spring.
One of them in Victoria is CRD housing.
So my thing is getting the LCC to take on housing and bring CRD housing over here to Salt Spring
to get some family-style dwellings over here on Salt Spring to get some family style dwellings over here on Salt Spring. And my position is
as someone who has a housing charity and is volunteering a lot of his time to making Salt
Spring better. I think if I can get elected, CRD right now has eight pieces of property around
Ganges that are just sitting there empty, we could turn them into apartment buildings or something for the community. Okay, that's an interesting idea. You are involved, or I guess
the main person with Wagon Wheel, is that right? Tell me a bit about that. What does that do
exactly? The Wagon Wheel Housing Society is a group that predates me by 10 years, and I joined eight years ago.
Our position was to build low-income housing for families and for single moms,
which we've been doing over here for the last eight years.
We also took on the project of building the community laundromat that we lost,
and this allows people that have no laundry facilities to do laundry.
We also have a community shower.
It allows especially the people living in tents, boats, and other stuff to have clean clothes
and to have a proper, decent shower facility here on the island.
All the money that we've collected goes right back to Salt Spring.
We do not take a dime.
I do the maintenance for free.
I do the pickup of all the supplies in Victoria
for free. And basically all the profit goes right back to Salt Spring.
Okay. And talking about that, you've pledged to donate your salary back. Where would that go to?
My position is that I would like the community to be a part of where the money should go to.
There's some great charities here
on the island and unfortunately
there are some rules about donating salaries
to groups. It has to
be a CAR charity
which of course I will follow.
I will have to accept
$1 a year as a payment
which I will also
gladly do.
But the main thing being is that, you know,
I think Salt Springers should, groups can come out
and figure out where they want this $10,000 a year salary to go to.
And, you know, there's lots of great charities here on the island
and, you know, I see getting the community involved
on where the money should be donated to.
But, you know, I have lots of lovely charities here on the island that I support,
but it's really the community's money,
and I'm a better volunteer than a politician,
and that's what I want to remain is a volunteer.
I do not want to take a dime from Salt Spring right now.
Okay, and tell me why you think housing is so crucial an issue at this point.
First of all, in the two-hour debate we just had, everything comes back down to housing.
You know, if you want parks, well, right now there are people that are drinking in the park.
There are people that are cooking in our parks.
There are people just, they've taken over our parks.
So community members sometimes don't feel safe going down there
when people are drinking and having parties.
But these are community parks.
They're doing it because they don't have a home to go back and, say, have a beer or relax.
They're going to the local parks.
So housing is a mainstay of Salt Spring
because every issue that we have is coming down to housing.
We need housing for workers. We need housing for seniors. We need housing for, like I said, single moms that are
struggling. And the main thing is, is because of the taxes here on the island, because when they
lowered the tax of the school day to four days, single people are having a harder time coming here. And so we're seeing a population
drain of the schools that is only going to affect taxes down the road and affect Salt Spring because
this is not an inviting place right now for families to come and live. And that's one of
the things is we need better housing and we need to get it done. And every issue that we have right now is just housing, housing, housing.
There's been talk about possibly setting up a housing authority of some kind on the island.
Are you in favor of that?
I'm in favor of whatever gets housing done.
But right now we have a tool in the CRD, which is CRD housing.
I don't see creating multiple different departments. I could see maybe asking CRD housing.
We could do CRD housing Salt Spring
and have an offshoot of the office here,
maybe for the Gulf Islands,
so we could get housing to the other Gulf Islands,
which are also having problems.
Maybe talking to the director over on Pender
and seeing if we can do stuff for not only Salt Spring,
but for Maine, Galliano, Pender, and Soderna,
because we're all islanders here and we all have the same problems.
Okay, and do you think that, I mean, some people have talked about,
you know, being able to lobby the island's trust more effectively
once the LCC is in place.
Do you think that's a realistic viewpoint
with regards to zoning and that kind of thing?
I think lobbying is going to be a part of the LCC no matter what.
We have to lobby the highways department, waterworks,
and I imagine the Islands Trust also.
So I think it is going to be a part of the trust no matter what,
or a part of the LCC is lobbying.
We have to support our community.
Right now I said that the first thing
that the LCC should do is send a notice of support
to the Seabreeze Housing Project
that is for nurses and doctors.
The hospital foundation bought the land,
has the money to do the land,
and is being held up by one individual.
And, you know, that's wrong
because now our hospital is now closing because it doesn't
have the staff.
And again, why would you move here and create a life here if you can't have proper housing?
So yes, the lobbying is going to be part of the LCC.
Okay, great.
Well, thanks for coming in, Kylie.
It's been great to talk to you.
And you're listening to Cheer.fm, the voice of the Gulf Islands gulf islands my name is damien inward and we'll be talking to you again
soon