Isn’t it funny how things work out sometimes!
Usually, when we have an issue, it can take a while to get it resolved.
But if you stopped by this space last week, you will recall I was commenting on an idea that had come up at the December CSRD meeting – the idea of switching Golden and Area ‘A’ from the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (office in Salmon Arm) to the Regional District of East Kootenay (office in Cranbrook).
It’s an idea that has come up before, and it certainly is one that has some degree of value. If, when regional districts were formed, our area had been put in the RDEK, we would still be there and would have thought that the lines were drawn as they should have been, in other words, that we did fit in the East Kootenay.
But they weren’t drawn that way, and to re-draw them is a huge task. And an expensive one.
So I outlined the issue as best I could, especially noting the reasons why I thought it wasn’t a good idea, including the history of when it was considered once before, in about 1980.
Then, after the paper had gone to press, I was able to confirm that while the issue had indeed come up at the December CSRD meeting, the work which would have been necessarily done if the idea were going to be pursued this year had been shelved at the February meeting. So the proposal is likely dead unless one of the Golden area directors brings it up again when the regional district considers its plans in future years.
So while I don’t think it’s an issue that keeps people in our area awake at night, if there is egg on anyone’s face as far as this space is concerned, it has to be on mine. It’s the kind of thing that has probably happened before, and will likely happen again, even though it shouldn’t.
Communication is always an important part of the newspaper business, and perhaps also part of the political business. I should have checked on the status of it before I wrote about it, and because the idea was public, maybe either Director Cathcart or Director Oszust could have let us know, over the last few weeks, that it had been put on hold.
But when people in the local area here were still talking about it, I assumed there was still at least some potential for it to either still be considered or for precious resources to be wasted on a feasibility study.
So in my defence, it may not have been all my fault (we like to have excuses, don’t we!) and, in their defence, keeping the media up to date isn’t always thought to be a top priority. In fact, when I was both the CSRD director and MLA, and a former newspaper publisher, I used to think about writing a newspaper column and then ask myself what was best, should I write a column or should I work on a problem that was important to a constituent, and I almost always favoured working on the constituent’s problem, simply because it was more interesting.
I’m not sure, though, that it was the smartest thing to do.
We had a federal Member of Parliament once who was a nice guy, and who was always in Opposition, so he wasn’t expected to accomplish much, and he didn’t, but he was very good at writing columns and getting sound bites on the radio, and he won every election he was ever in.
So speaking of keeping you up to date on issues, and since I have a bit of extra space today, and with me having made food security an issue at least on these pages, I’ll update you on that.
You might recall that a few weeks ago, I asked if anyone had any thoughts that they would like to share with me, and at first, I didn’t hear from a soul, so I thought that was maybe the end of it. But then, after reporting the lack of interest in another recent column, I started to get calls. Not a huge amount, but some.
One of you wrote, “Ok, I’m feeling guilty. I was going to respond to the community farm idea and assumed you would get a large response. I think it is a great idea and a direction of thought we should be considering a little more often, as well as other ideas to make us more independent.”
Another one, an interesting reader who doesn’t even live here, Gordon Conover, who lives in Illinois, had some thoughts as well: “Duane, we’re spoiled. You were asking people to think ‘outside the box’ or their comfort zone when you pestered them about food security. With grocery stores abundant with food even in the worst times, it’s hard to imagine the need for food security. (At least in Canada or the USA.) Let’s face it, your job is to think about things and speculate. Most folks find that difficult and would rather avoid it if they could. And they did.”
And in a second note, Gordon offered another comment, not really about food security, but about communication in general, which is how today’s column started out, and which I thought you might find amusing: “Thank goodness for phones and the internet these days. Keep up the writing; the world needs intelligent opinions. Occasionally, you even have one. Just kidding.”
