Retired communications specialist and 30-year Roberts Creek resident Cathrine Fuller has emerged as Area D’s first candidate for Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) director.
“It’s a very critical time for the Sunshine Coast and the decisions made in this next decade are going to have an impact over the next many decades,” she told Coast Reporter.
Fuller has worked most of her life in the media and communications industry, including five years in the 1980s as a reporter and then editor for The Coast News. One of her beats was the SCRD. After closing her publishing business in 2015, Fuller worked part-time at the Sechelt Seniors Centre as their office manager and has since retired. She is active in Driftwood Players and sings in a local choir. Fuller, 67, has COPD, which requires that she carry her own supply of oxygen. In a release she called it “one big elephant” she’d like to address “before it comes into the room.”
Similar to Area E candidate Donna McMahon, Fuller said she is prepared to work with other board members on improving communications. “First and foremost as soon as I get in there we need to talk about having live streaming,” she said, referencing Sechelt, which live streams council meetings.
She said she may also continue director Mark Lebbell’s tradition of maintaining a blog, but she will not support what Lebbell has long fought for: the installation of a permanent system capable of drawing an additional five metres of water from Chapman Lake. “I do not support the Chapman drawdown. I believe it’s ill advised, too expensive and will take too long. There’s a reason the province has not approved our applications yet,” she said, calling the project the “sippy cup method” of water supply.
Instead, Fuller wants the SCRD to focus on storage, such as a raw water reservoir. She surmised also that water rates will likely come before the board within the next four years and sees billing according to use a fairer approach than a flat water tax.
Fuller also turned to housing affordability as a key issue she would tackle at the board table. She emphasized that the Sunshine Coast will likely draw more developers seeking to avoid the newly established foreign buyers tax, which won’t be applied to Coast properties. “We are the logical place for developers to come and build up,” she said, “and that’s going to take some very careful stewarding.” She said she wants to investigate the viability of requiring large developers in Roberts Creek to build water catchments.
Fuller said she encourages anyone who disagrees with her platform to run. “I think choice is always a good thing.”
