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Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Sportsplex funding goes to fall referendum ANDREA RONDEAU CITIZEN
North Cowichan Mayor Jon Lefebure hopes a referendum in November will help to provide stability to the funding of the Cowichan Sportsplex, a unique facility in the Valley. [ANDREA RONDEAU/CITIZEN]
Residents of the Cowichan Valley will be voting in a referendum in November whether or not they want to fund the Cowichan Sportsplex. A marathon discussion at the Cowichan Valley Regional District’s regional services committee ended with a vote to recommend to the board (which is composed of the same people as the committee) to take the matter to the public on an area by area basis — meaning some, all or none of the areas may end up participating in the funding. The Sportsplex has received funding from the regional district for a number of years through a grant in aid. The general concensus around the board table is that the time has come to decide whether the regional district wishes to make it a function, which would provide the Sportsplex with dependable, stable funding. The CVRD’s senior policy advisor Jacob Ellis told the directors that staff began public consultations to take the temperature of the electorate in January. This included face-to-face community meetings as well as an online survey. There were 707 responses in all, with 495 people filling out the online survey, numbers that
Ellis characterized as “excellent” and “very positive overall participation.” Region-wide, the responses from the public indicated a willingness to fund the Sportsplex, Ellis reported. Generally, 63 per cent of respondents favoured funding the facility, while a specific $200,000 maximum requisition gained a 50 per cent favourable response. Ellis admitted that the sample sizes in some areas were too small to really get a good idea of what the community in question thinks. For example, in North Oyster/Diamond responses were 100 per cent positive, but the number of participants was only 10. “I disagree completely with your take on Area H’s answers here,” said Dir. Mary Marcotte. “I have not heard one single positive thing on that.” Though staff recommended going to referendum as an entire region, the idea was quickly rejected by many of the electoral area directors. Shawnigan Lake Dir. Bruce Fraser summed up the objections of many. “It would be quite illegitimate to bury the smaller electoral areas in a regional vote in which their votes would probably be insignificant,” he said. See MUNICIPALITIES, Page 4