The chair of the Sunshine Coast Community Forest is predicting 2018 will be the best year in the organization’s history in terms of financial performance.
Geoff Craig shared the third quarter results for Sechelt Community Projects Inc. (SCPI), the district-owned company that manages Community Forest operations, with Sechelt council on Dec. 5.
He said revenues from logging are sitting at $3,647,458 with all the timber cut in 2018 sold and no further harvesting planned for the year.
“Our net income for the year to date is $1,278,378. This number will be reduced somewhat by the expenses of the fourth quarter,” Craig’s written report said. “I expect net income for the whole year to be the corporation’s best ever.”
SCPI is holding retained earnings of $2,375,409.
Craig went on to explain that two factors contributed to the high earnings – a higher than average amount of timber was harvested, about 28,379 cubic metres, and log prices hit record highs.
His report also said that situation may not continue through the final two years of the current cut control period, noting that average harvests are expected to be around 15,000 cubic metres and lumber prices have “decreased markedly,” which could lead to lower log prices as well.
SCPI spent $91,179 on “legal and audit costs” as of the end of the third quarter on Sept. 30.
Coun. Tom Lamb asked how much of those expenses involved legal fees.
“The majority of that would be the court injunction and our response to it,” Craig responded, referring to the Elphinstone Logging Focus challenge of harvesting in the East Wilson Creek area. “The injunction ultimately failed and we were awarded costs, so that’s something that may happen. But as you know, court-ordered costs are nothing near what you actually paid.”
Craig also told councillors that SCPI’s operations manager is working to organize a workshop on urban interface wildfires for local fire departments, emergency planning departments and local government officials, in early 2019.
The 2015 Old Sechelt Mine Fire destroyed or damaged about 115 hectares of the Community Forest tenure area.
