Tuesday January 9, 2024 | SOOKE, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
District of Sooke Mayor Maja Tait and District of Sooke Council are inviting Sooke residents to join them on Monday January 29 for a coffee meet and greet.
Calling it a ‘walkshop’, storyboards and info will be on display around the room to provide background on District activities, current projects and local initiatives as part of supporting conversations within the community.
Morning event:
The morning event runs from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in Council Chambers at Sooke Municipal Hall.
- 10:00 a.m.: Meet and Greet
- 10:30 a.m. Mayoral Remarks, followed by Q + A
- 11:00 a.m. Storyboard “Walkshop”
Open discussion:
This is being described as an opportunity to meet with Mayor and Council and discuss any concerns and ask questions about local initiatives.
No specific projects or initiatives are mention in the public invitation, but clearly Sooke is experiencing a housing supply crisis, with affordability issues overlaying most concerns for residents and local businesses.
More to come:
This municipal exercise comes as Tait readies her launch into federal politics as the NDP candidate for Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke; after announcing her candidacy at the end of August 2023 she took her foot of that gas pedal at least publicly, for the rest of 2023.
The next federal election is expected in 2025 but could come sooner.
The next municipal election cycle in BC is in Fall 2026. Tait was president of the Union of BC Municipalities in 2020.
Future municipal information sessions with Sooke Council will be offered at different times of the day or week to accommodate a variety of residents’ schedules.
The January 29 session on a Monday morning will likely attract seniors and people who don’t leave Sooke for employment during the day.
===== RELATED:
- District of Sooke suddenly without a CAO (October 24, 2023)
- Maja Tait kickstarts her federal campaign in Esquimalt-Saanich-Sooke (September 1, 2023)
- Sooke Mayor Maja Tait turning from local to federal (August 15, 2023)
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends was launched as a daily online news portal at IslandSocialTrends.ca in mid-2020 by founding editor and publisher Mary P Brooke.
Ms Brooke produces news through a socioeconomic lens. She began that news publishing journey in Sooke in 2008 with MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), followed by the weekly Sooke Voice News (2011-2013) which morphed into West Shore Voice News in 2014. All those print editions are archived in the permanent collections at the Sooke Region Museum.
Brooke relocated to Langford in 2017 to continue West Shore Voice News (2014-2020) with a west shore focus. When the pandemic hit, the shift was to creating Island Social Trends in summer 2020.
Mary P Brooke was nominated in 2023 for a Jack Webster Journalism award that recognizes a woman journalist for her contribution to community. Ms Brooke also now reports with the BC Legislative Press Gallery.
The print edition of Island Social Trends launches in January 2024, published by Brookeline Publishing House Inc.