July
•The District of Sechelt closed the float at the end of Davis Bay Wharf until further notice as the float and ramp have become a hazard due to unstable movement in wavy conditions.
•The Gibsons Public Market fundraising campaign, officially launched in June, had already netted $1.3 million, thanks to some hefty investment by Telus, Island Coastal Economic Trust, the federal government and the Sunshine Coast community. The fundraising gala celebrations began on a sombre note as guests were told of the sudden passing the night before of one of the public market founders, Nicholas Sonntag.
•The province called for voluntary water use reductions of 20 per cent or more from all municipal, agricultural and industrial users on the Sunshine Coast. The Coast was declared a Level 3 drought area, along with Sea to Sky, Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.
•A mainstay of the region’s hospitality services since 1997, the Sunshine Coast Travel Ambassadors suspended their program after a BC Ferries manager told the volunteers they would have to pay to park at Langdale terminal or face having their vehicles towed away. After being contacted by Coast Reporter, BC Ferries reversed the policy.
•Almost one week after it started on July 2, the Old Sechelt Mine wildfire covered an estimated 300 hectares of forest above Sechelt Inlet and had claimed the life of a Roberts Creek logger who was felling trees as part of the firefighting efforts. John Phare, 60, died after being struck by a falling tree. While friends and family mourned his passing, the wildfire continued to grow at an accelerating rate.
•The Halfmoon Carlson forest service road was closed due to the high volume of danger trees and to ensure the safety of fire crews, prompting the SCRD to declare a state of local emergency and issue an evacuation order for 21 waterfront properties at Carlson Point.
•The BC Ministry of Environment and Vancouver Coastal Health issued a wildfire smoke advisory for the Sunshine Coast and surrounding areas.
•The SCRD projected only about 72 days of water supply left in Chapman Lake, the main source of water for Coast residents.
•The 400-hectare Old Sechelt Mine fire was 90 per cent contained as of July 14 and incident commander Reg Trapp predicted it would be 100 per cent contained within days. The improved status of the fire meant Carlson Point residents were able to return home after the week-long evacuation order was downgraded to an evacuation alert.
•Believed to be the oldest person on the Sunshine Coast, Emilie Shaw celebrated her 106th birthday at Shorncliffe in Sechelt. “She is totally on the ball and has a wonderful sense of humour,” said her daughter Fran McGuckin of Halfmoon Bay.
•Stage 4 water restrictions loomed as the drought continued on the Coast. The threat had many farmers concerned about their crops. Annette Clarke, a farmer from Roberts Creek, led a petition to ask the SCRD board for exemptions to the Stage 4 restrictions for farmers and food producers.
•The 2015 Sea Cavalcade Festival lost its permit for the pyrotechnics display, but the fireworks display was still planned for Gibsons Harbour.
•Three impressive totem poles carved by Tony Paul and Dion Louie were installed next to the emergency entrance of Sechelt (shíshálh) Hospital and celebrated with a public ceremony.
•Public painting began on the 18th annual community mandala being created in Roberts Creek at the foot of the pier. The theme celebrated community, family and abundance.
•The SCRD asked Coasters to pledge to reduce their use of water to help stave off Stage 4 water restrictions. Water users managed to cut their daily consumption from 22 million litres to roughly 14 million litres. The SCRD hoped the trend would continue.
•As the fire burning above Sechelt slowly smouldered out, tree-faller John Phare was remembered by the Sunshine Coast community with deep gratitude, love and affection. Almost 1,000 people attended Phare’s memorial service in the Gibsons arena.
•This year marked the 20th annual Coasters Car Club rod run and show ‘n’ shine, which delights thousands each year and has become an anticipated summer staple on the Sunshine Coast. The car club was officially formed in 1996 as a non-profit society of automobile enthusiasts.
•The SCRD board of directors voted unanimously to exempt certain Sunshine Coast farmers from Stage 4 water restrictions. Delegates Dale Peterson and Annette Clarke requested an exemption for all food producers on the Coast, arguing that food sustainability should take precedence over other water uses.
•Howe Sound Pulp and Paper’s parent company, Paper Excellence, announced it was cutting 180 employees and permanently shutting down its paper production operations at the Port Mellon mill, the Sunshine Coast’s largest employer. The decision to cut more than a third of the mill’s workforce would have grave social and economic implications for Gibsons, Mayor Wayne Rowe said.
August
•Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the 42nd federal election on Aug. 2, making the lead-up to the Oct. 19 vote the longest campaign period in Canadian history since the nation began holding coordinated voting in the late 1800s.
•A class action lawsuit filed against Canada on behalf of all First Nation day scholars and their children was certified in Federal Court and is now moving forward. The judge who certified the lawsuit also called for a mediated settlement.
•The Town of Gibsons was told it would be receiving almost $1.3 million in funding from the Small Communities Fund to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant, leaving more than $600,000 for the Town to pay.
•Green party leader Elizabeth May visited Gibsons on Aug. 1 to discuss the Green platform and stir up votes for local candidate Ken Melamed.
•A regional economic development initiative is taking shape with the formation of a steering committee of representatives from all local governments on the Coast and Sechelt Nation.
•Shoal Bay Properties filed a lawsuit against the Town of Gibsons claiming its water access rights have been violated by the proximity of Gibsons Marina.
•Gibsons resident Scott Russell brought a petition with over 1,000 signatures to council, advocating that the George Hotel and Residences project move forward in its current design.
•Vancouver Coastal Health was urging caution in the use of grey water after the SCRD announced a ban on all outdoor watering and advised the public to recycle “clean” bathwater and dishwater to water plants and vegetables. The SCRD announced it would move to Stage 4 water use restrictions for all regional water customers south of Pender Harbour.
•District of Sechelt corporate officer Margi Nicholas was let go, a new temporary corporate officer was hired and a personnel committee was struck to find new senior staff to fill temporary positions held at the District.
•Members of Elphinstone Logging Focus (ELF) formed a blockade to stop road building on Mount Elphinstone that would allow for harvesting of what the group called a black bear sanctuary in timber sale area A87126.
•Thousands rallied on social media to try to keep controversial U.S. pickup artist and anti-feminist blogger Daryush Valizadeh, known online as Roosh V, from delivering a lecture in Toronto after the country was alerted to his presence by Roberts Creek mother of three Sara Parker-Touslon.
•Two hikers were rescued by helicopter off Mount Elphinstone after one of them, a 20-year-old man, fell down Langdale Falls and suffered multiple injuries including a leg fracture and hypothermia.
•An invasive plant was trying to take root on the Coast that produces a highly toxic sap that can cause burns, blisters and even blindness. Giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) is an aggressive invader that was first introduced to North America as a garden ornamental plant.
•Coast farmers without metered water were suffering due to Stage 4 water restrictions, with many fearing they could lose their livelihoods if the drought continued much longer.
•While residents struggled to meet Stage 4 water restrictions, the SCRD was devising an emergency plan to access a plentiful water source in Chapman Lake. The SCRD has the licence and infrastructure to draw down the lake only three metres, but general manager of infrastructure services Bryan Shoji said there were another 32 metres that could be tapped.
•Non-potable water sources were opened up in Gibsons and Sechelt in an effort to help residents keep their plants alive during Stage 4 restrictions.
•Low water levels in Chapman Creek were creating higher temperatures and shallow waterways that were threatening salmon survival.
•The Sechelt Legion reached the point of bankruptcy and was looking for donations to make it one more month.
•An RCMP dive team searched the waters of Garden Bay Lake after a 59-year-old Garden Bay man went missing while kayaking.
•Margie and Mark Gray were struggling to understand what happened to their son, 33-year-old Myles Gray of Sechelt, who was reportedly in an altercation with several Vancouver police officers in Burnaby that ended in Myles’ death. The Independent Investigations Office was looking into the incident
•An overflow crowd at the District of Sechelt’s Aug. 25 water conservation meeting was more concerned about water supply than water conservation, causing the meeting to split into two parts, starting first with an update on the Coast’s water supply and what was being done to access more.
•The water level in Howe Sound Pulp and Paper’s Lake Seven was at historically low levels, according to craft technical and environmental manager Brent Desrocher. Lake Seven feeds the mill’s pulp and power operations.
•The District of Sechelt released an 80-page organizational and management review conducted earlier this year, which called for some big changes at the District. The review found an overall absence of strategic approaches at the District. Much blame was placed on the previous council’s “private enterprise approach to conducting municipal business.”
•The unexpected departure of the District of Sechelt’s chief financial officer Victor Mema left the District without any permanent senior staff. Mema gave only one week’s notice of his intent to leave the DOS to take a job in Nanaimo, making his last day effective Aug. 28.
•Cuts to the School District No. 46 cleaning budget of $80,000 left custodians unable to do the kind of deep cleaning that normally gets done in schools over the summer, according to CUPE Local 801 acting president Marnie Baba.
September
•Chapman Lake was “overflowing” with water as of Sept. 2, after five days of rain dropped more than 200 mm into the SCRD reservoir. With the influx of rain, the SCRD decided to relax watering restrictions for residents south of Pender Harbour to Stage 3.
•It was the elders’ vision come true. There were so many pink salmon returning to spawn in Jervis, Narrows and Salmon inlets that shíshálh (Sechelt) First Nation opened the area to commercial fishing for the first time in 50 years.
•A few hundred homes on the Sunshine Coast were without power for up to three days after a major wind and rain storm. Winds hit gusts of up to 72 km an hour, toppled trees and downed power lines, causing hundreds of residents to lose electricity.
•Zones one and two in the Town of Gibsons were told they would not be returning to Stage 4 water restrictions this year, even if the SCRD re-implemented restrictions at any point in 2015.
•BC Ferries announced it would reinstate the 6:20 a.m. round-trip sailing from Langdale to Horseshoe Bay for the fall and spring shoulder season in response to “excessive delays” experienced last fall and spring.
•Gibsons resident Marcia Timbres addressed Gibsons council at the Sept. 1 meeting with a petition containing more than 2,100 signatures opposing the current design of the proposed George Hotel and Residences project.
•Work to realign the School Road and Gibsons Way intersection was slated to start, thanks to multi-government collaboration and a bit of pressure from the public.
•SCRD directors voted in favour of deepening the channel at Chapman Lake for a backup emergency water supply at the Sept. 3 infrastructure services committee meeting. The option – which still had to be ratified by the board and pass the design and budget approval process – would increase the depth of the channel between the Chapman Lake water supply and Chapman Creek by five metres.
•From the movable walls to the toddler-height windows, everything at the new mem?iman Early Childhood Development Centre was designed with the child in mind. With a price tag of $4.5 million, the state-of-the-art, 1,134-square-metre childhood development centre opened on shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation lands close to the band hall boasts a green roof and plentiful natural light.
•The Ruby Lake Lagoon Nature Reserve Society announced it was working towards eliminating the highly invasive Japanese knotweed from Anderson Creek and the sensitive salmon spawning grounds in John Daly Park.
•A family forced to flee their Sechelt home when a sinkhole opened on their property was suing the district, the developer who built the home, various geotechnical and engineering firms, an insurance company and the realtors who sold the family their “dream home,” which later became a nightmare.
•The petition claiming to have 2,100 signatures in opposition to the George Hotel and Residences – which was presented at Gibsons council on Sept. 1 – was challenged by Town resident Joan Beck. Beck presented her findings to Town council at the meeting on Sept. 15.
•There was no public support at a Sept. 9 public hearing for a bylaw amendment that would place rules and restrictions around future medical marijuana grow operations in Sechelt.
•The SCRD board voted five to one in favour of the drought mitigation options recommended by the infrastructure services committee.
•The Pender Harbour dock management working group continued to bring issues forward to consultant Barry Penner, who was hired by the province to make non-binding recommendations to government around what to do with the dock management situation in Pender.
•The public unveiling for the completed residential school memorial statue on Sept. 19 drew more than 100 people to hear testimonies of residential school atrocities spoken by survivors. The monument now sits in front of the shíshálh Nation’s health and social development building, close to where one of the 140 residential schools in Canada once stood.
•The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure announced it will study the costs and benefits of a possible highway link between the Sunshine Coast and Metro Vancouver.
•The SCRD declared a return to Stage 1 outdoor water use restrictions for all regional water customers south of Pender Harbour.
•For the second time in 2015, Malaspina Coach Lines cancelled service. On Sept. 13, the company posted on its website that service was “cancelled until further notice.”
•Candidates on the Sunshine Coast were getting out to hear from their constituents in advance of upcoming all-candidates meetings – and while those challenging incumbent Conservative MP John Weston said they were hearing that the public wanted change, Weston said he was getting a very different message at the door.
•Former District of Sechelt corporate officer Margi Nicholas was suing the District for defamation of character and damages related to the manner of her dismissal in July.
•The District of Sechelt decided to get a second opinion on a geotechnical report that suggested it would take more than $9.5 million to fully understand and address sinkholes and other soil disturbances in the Seawatch subdivision on Gale Avenue North.
