Lately, while I'm observing the dysfunctional catfights at the Sunshine Coast Regional District board, I find myself muttering "One government. One government."
Regional factions, paranoid turf-protection and attempted tax grabs are nothing new at the SCRD. I remember the time, almost a decade ago, when Sechelt mayor Earl Basse blew his top and refused to attend any more SCRD meetings because of what he perceived as a lack of cooperation.
Things are a whole lot worse now than they were when Basse walked out. The power struggles at the board table have gotten so out of hand that they are preventing decision-making and interfering with the ordinary business of government, the services we expect to receive in return for paying our taxes. Here are some of the worst examples from just the first few months of 2004.
We need a new recycling program to replace the services lost when the Sunshine Coast Recycling and Processing Society went belly-up last fall, but the SCRD board has been unable to make a decision on hiring a new contractor. In fact, eight months after the demise of SCRAPS, the board has not even decided what kind of recycling service it wants. One key reason for the lack of decision is squabbling between the Town of Gibsons and the SCRD over whether Gibsons will get a staffed recycling depot.
The SCRD's grants-in-aid program has become politicized after Sechelt pulled its funding. Several SCRD directors, including Roberts Creek director Adrian Belshaw, wanted to retaliate by removing Sechelt citizens from the non-partisan committee, which recommends how to spend grants money. But using Belshaw's own logic, he should be banned from making decisions about grants-in-aid himself because he now lives in Sechelt. Such ironies are laughable, but it's not funny that the ones being hurt are non-profit volunteer organizations running on a tight budget.
In another example of supreme pettiness, Halfmoon Bay director John Marian launched a personal attack on Gibsons mayor Barry Janyk over Janyk's plans to buy a personal digital assistant with SCRD money. The great debate over this $840 purchase came the same week the SCRD board was approving a $7 million budget. Priorities, anyone?
As regional rivalries erupt into personal battles between politicians, the weapon of choice is, increasingly, to opt out of paying for regional services. This tactic, otherwise known as "play my way or I'll take my tax base and go home," is incredibly destructive, and right now the Sechelt Public Library and the Gibsons Swimming Pool are suffering as a result.
Marian and Sechelt Mayor Cam Reid are in a spitting match over the library funding, while the library, caught in the middle, is forced to close on Sundays. A much-needed $700,000 renovation for the Gibsons pool has been delayed because Belshaw insisted Roberts Creek taxpayers should pay only half as much for the improvements as those in Gibsons, Elphinstone and West Howe Sound.
From where I sit, these regional fights don't make sense. Over the past dozen years, I've lived in Roberts Creek, Francis Peninsula, Elphinstone and now Halfmoon Bay. I've worked at businesses in Sechelt, Gibsons and Pender Harbour. I use the Sechelt library, the Gibsons pool and parks all over the Sunshine Coast. I'm a citizen of the Sunshine Coast, not just my immediate neighbourhood, and I want my government to stop the petty turf wars and start taking care of real business, like running the pools, libraries and recycling depots smoothly and professionally.
One government. It sounds good to me.
