Pender Library function AAP
The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) will launch an alternative approval process later this month to get approval to establish a library service function that would allow for regular funding based on taxation for the Pender Harbour Reading Room and the Sechelt Public Library. Area A’s current funding for those services is through yearly grants.
If approved, the Area A library function would be able to collect up to $67,000 or four cents per $1,000 of a property’s assessment.
SCRD chair and Halfmoon Bay director Garry Nohr, who supports Pender Harbour creating a library function to stabilize the funding, said he was voting against the APP because he feels the amounts are too small.
“I think it’s a great thing that Pender Harbour is doing this, but if you look at the numbers it will never be able to get enough money to really give their fair share to the Sechelt library,” Nohr told his fellow directors.
Frank Mauro of Area A said he understood Nohr’s position, but added that “a fair share is always an interpretive term. I think that Pender Harbour wants to contribute to the Sechelt library in a fair and equitable way, along with the reading room in Pender Harbour.” Mauro said the numbers in the proposed service bylaw are roughly equal to Area A’s current contribution.
First notice for the AAP is expected April 21, with a deadline to respond of May 30.
Internet access
Director Mauro and Ian Winn of West Howe Sound are continuing their push for better Internet connectivity for residents of the Sunshine Coast. They got approval from fellow directors March 23 to write the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) “advocating for affordable wholesale pricing for small Internet service providers to access Internet fibre backbones to enhance expanded universal broadband access and connectivity for the Sunshine Coast.”
Winn and Mauro have been working with the provincial government initiative Network BC, and Mauro told the committee they’re encouraged by the CRTC’s ruling that high-speed Internet should be considered a basic service. He said several proposals have come forward, but costs have created significant roadblocks. “Small Internet service providers are facing relatively high costs to connect to the fibre backbone that is on the Coast.”
This week, the province announced $560,000 for Base Technology Ltd. to roll out a $1.22-million project to bring high-speed Internet to about 1,000 homes and businesses on Gambier and Keats islands and the Port Mellon area.
AVICC resolution
SCRD directors, along with many other local government representatives from the Sunshine Coast, will be at the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) AGM this weekend, and the SCRD is hoping to see adoption of a resolution that came out of Persephone Brewing Company’s effort to keep operating on ALR land.
SCRD directors supported a non-farm use application from Persephone that was denied by the Agricultural Land Commission.
The SCRD-sponsored resolution says: “Whereas, an inequity exists between Agricultural Land Com-mission rules that apply to breweries, distilleries and meaderies under Policy L-21 vs. wineries and cideries under Policy L-03 which impedes the economic growth, agricultural production and agri-tourism opportunities in rural communities; and whereas, Agricultural Land Commission Policy L-21 requires that at least 50 per cent of products for breweries, distilleries and meaderies be grown on site; therefore be it resolved that: the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Land Commission be requested to revise the Agricultural Land Reserve Use, Sub-division and Procedure Regulation to allow breweries, distilleries and meaderies to contract with another B.C. grower to meet the 50 per cent farm product requirement.”
The AVICC resolutions committee has not made a recommendation to delegates about the SCRD’s resolution.
AVICC meets April 7 to 9 in Campbell River.
