Sunday June 11, 2023 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Four mayors of the west shore region got together last Thursday evening, to chat through some of their leadership views in front of a west shore business audience.
The seated Vision WestShore dinner event held at the Olympic View Golf Club featured a front row panel attended by Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi, Langford Mayor Scott Goodmanson, Metchosin Mayor Marie-Térèse Little, and View Royal Mayor Sid Tobias.
Guided by MLA Mitzi Dean (Esquimalt-Metchosin) as the evening’s emcee, they responded to questions and reflected upon a range of issues. Dean has oft repeated in recent weeks about how pleased she is about the proactive collaboration of leadership in the west shore.
District of Highlands Mayor Ken Williams was unable to attend.
Overview of important topics:
The run-through of topics covered the housing crisis, challenges in health-care and how municipalities do have a role in that, and the benefits of local right-sized arts and culture experiences. There was awareness of emergency response requirements though no mention of food security for these island communities.
The topic of amalgamation was surprisingly included in the format. It’s a tired discussion.
Directions:
“We have a good group that is working together,” said Mayor Tobias, in his first term as the mayor of land-locked View Royal. One of his visions is to enable enjoyment of the west shore without having to head into Victoria and to see more upisland folks see the westshore as their entertainment destination without driving any further south.
“We’re working on the non-sexy stuff,” said Mayor Little, as the small Metchosin municipality pulls itself together and grows in new directions, reviewing old bylaws from the 1990s and starting strategic planning. She expressed pride about Metchosin building its own arts and culture centre in a previous old school.
A new civic model for health-care was previewed by mayor Kobayashi, who in his first term as Colwood mayor (previously a city councillor). He plugged the Saunders Family Foundation which in recent years did some extensive exploratory work in support of health-care workers in the community, and tried whetting people’s appetite for an upcoming announcement around health-care supports.
“When density comes in you still know where you are,” said Goodmanson as he sets leadership for Langford amidst robust housing growth. He noted that most of what’s been built in Langford in the past decade is unaffordable. Goodmanson is pushing for commuter rail, using the E&N corridor.
Rehashed discussion about amalgamation:
While the overall tone was one of building inter-municipal relationships in a time of transition (four new mayors after some leadership upsets in the October 2022 election), there were some cracks showing light for different directions.
One of those would be how municipalities work together: most of the mayors that evening are happy with the current inter-municipal cooperation (as with fire mutual aid agreements, the shared recreation facilities at West Shore Parks and Recreation, and policing as through West Shore RCMP) while one declared amalgamation of west shore (or all 13 Greater Victoria) municipalities as inevitable.
Who was there:
Among the elected officials attending the evening event were City of Langford Councillors Lillian Szpak and Mary J Wagner and City of Colwood Councillors Kim Jordison and Ian Ward.
One of the chamber’s past-presidents Mike Rieilly was there, as well as former Colwood councillors team Judith Cullington and Michael Baxter.
A wide range of businesses were represented including Edward Jones, Megson-Fitzpatrick, and Island Social Trends.
There was clearly no political party presence there… with a provincial by-election going on the candidates were out door-knocking.
No one from the SD62 school district appeared to be there.
Fundraiser:
About 120 people attended for the evening. Chamber members and non-members paid about $100 on average (more by non-members) for a chicken and salmon buffet dinner including pastry-style desserts.
Elements Casino was the main sponsor.
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends (and the previous publications MapleLine Magazine 2008-2010, Sooke Voice News 2011-2013, and West Shore Voice News 2014-2020) delivers socioeconomic news insights about life on the west shore of south Vancouver Island. All news is posted at IslandSocialTrends.ca and a print edition will be launched this summer.
Editor Mary P Brooke. Published by Brookeline Publishing House Inc. | Never miss a story: PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION SIGNUP