Municipal Election Watch – West Shore of Vancouver Island, BC
Kevin Pearson running for mayor in Sooke
As published in the May 18, 2018 issue of West Shore Voice News
Friday, May 18 ~ SOOKE. This week in Sooke, mayoral candidate Kevin Pearson stopped to chat after a Vancouver Island Regional Library event where the new facility design was finally announced. He was pleased that after eight years Sooke will finally have a modern community gathering place in its new library.
Pearson has served seven years on Sooke council (2011-2018) but admits “what’s missing in the organization is leadership — we gotta get some”, he told West Shore Voice News.
Pearson cites failure of updating the Official Community Plan (OCP) in this last term as a major setback for Sooke in its process of facilitating community growth. Some OCP community-input initiatives were conducted by staff and then reported as a series of lists to Council to which council ultimately did not apply a vision.
“Strategic planning needs to weave in your values,” he said. There was an extensive in-camera strategic planning initiative among Mayor and Council early in 2015 as their four-year term got rolling under Mayor Maja Tait but Pearson says that should not have been conducted behind closed doors.
Pearson says he would set up three standing committees if he becomes mayor after the October 20 election: Arts, Finance, and Development (which he says would include Environment).
Pearson will soon retire from his career with Canada Post.
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