Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) directors endorsed a new energy management mission statement and draft energy management policy during their corporate and administrative services committee meeting May 23.
Directors praised new corporate energy manger Shane Laye for the high level policy document that looked at all kinds of energy uses on the Coast and how to reduce them.
"You're including other forms of energy rather than just hydro. That makes sense to me," said committee chair and Gibsons director Gerry Tretick.
The new mission statement approved by the committee reads: "We protect our culture and the future of our environment by minimizing our consumption of energy, resources and our contributions to the pollution of land, water and air."
UBCM
Directors questioned the point of Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) resolutions, saying they should be enacted or perhaps abandoned altogether.
Each year local governments forward resolutions for consideration at UBCM and often those resolutions are endorsed by the group representing municipalities throughout B.C.
While the resolutions usually take a stand on important topics, they tend to go nowhere.
"From my point of view in attending UBCM and listening to all these resolutions, participating in them and sending them off - generally it's to the provincial government, requesting involvement, consultation and change - they are ignored," said West Howe Sound director Lee Turnbull.
Other directors agreed they saw no movement on motions supported at UBCM and they asked staff to draft a resolution to send to UBCM that says they want "some sort of measure on the effectiveness of UBCM resolutions."
Citizen engagement
Directors gave their input on a citizen engagement framework that is meant to help the SCRD better connect with constituents.
"It's a staff initiative that we've been working on for some time now," said Steve Olmstead, general manager of planning and development. "We're involved in a number of fairly significant projects that involve community engagement in one form or another, and what we have found to be lacking to a certain degree is an element of consistency in how these engagement processes have taken place."
The plan calls for informing residents through things like fact sheets, news releases, advertising and open houses when a topic needing community input arises.
It also calls for consultation through things like focus groups and surveys, involving citizens in workshops and polling, collaborating with the public and empowering them through things like citizen juries and delegating appropriate decisions to the public.
The framework should come up again for discussion at the next corporate services committee meeting later in June.
In the meantime the committee endorsed the plan's statement of commitment to citizen engagement.
