Contact your RDEK director and the RDEK board
Following the RDEK 8-to-7 vote on August 7th we encourage you to contact your RDEK director and the RDEK board to express your opinions on the issue.
Let your RDEK director know if you are disappointed at the abdication of local decision-making control, at the request for the Province to form a Corporate Municipal Government that does not conform with RDEK zoning for the Jumbo area, and that the issue should have entailed the relevant public process.
Please request an explanation.
Also please include your thoughts on the proposed Jumbo Glacier Resort.
Please remember to respect your elected officials; keep your message polite and to the point.
A suggested 'letter' is detailed below along with the contact details for the RDEK board and the individual directors. How each director voted is also detailed.
Sample letter
(Please edit and add text as you see fit)
Subject: August 7th RDEK Abdication of Local Decision-Making
Dear RDEK Board,
I am writing this letter to let you know that I am extremely disappointed at your decision to abdicate local control of local land-use issues to the Province of British Columbia. As an elected board, you have been entrusted with many difficult land-use decisions, and with the future of the East Kootenay region. For you to decide to pass a decision on to Victoria simply because it was "too complex", "too large an issue", or "too controversial" is simply unacceptable. That you went one step beyond and asked the Province to enact a land-use is not supported by our RDEK zoning, with no public input, is a monumental breach of this trust.
The argument has been made that public process has been served. However, when four of five directors in the Jumbo area speak and vote against a motion, and when 12 of 16 submissions at the meeting were in strong opposition, and when the public who show up to witness the meeting are met with a security guard and are locked out of the process, and the motion still passes, it is obvious that public input was simply ignored.
Please respond with your rationale as to why you have given away your responsibility in this matter, how you plan to allow public input into the change in zoning that will occur in order to enact this motion, and why your constituents should have faith that you will not simply do this every time a difficult decision arises.
My vision for the future of the Kootenays includes a wild Jumbo Valley, and an RDEK Board that will allow public input and due process to occur for all local land-use decisions, no matter how difficult they may be.
For a wild Jumbo,
RDEK Board contact information
Director contact information
Electoral Area A: voted to send the decision to the province
Mike Sosnowski — 250-423-1029 mike@snowmobilefernie.com
Electoral Area B: voted to keep the decision local
Heath Slee — 250-887-3483 (Home)
Electoral Area C: voted to send the decision to the province
Rob Gay — 250-489-4242 (Home) robgay@telus.net
Electoral Area E: voted to keep the decision local
Norman Walter — 250-427-2577 (Home) norm.walter@gmail.com
Electoral Area F: voted to keep the decision local
Wendy Booth — 250-345-6155 (Home) wendy@columbiarafting.com
Electoral Area G: voted to keep the decision local
Gerry Wilkie — 250-347-9841 (Home) gdwilkie@cyberlink.bc.ca
Village of Canal Flats: voted to keep the decision local
Ute Juras — 250-349-5672 (Home) udjuras@yahoo.ca
City of Cranbrook: voted to send the decision to the province
Scott Manjak — 250-489-4339 (Office) manjak@telus.net
Liz Schatschneider — 250-489-3334 (Office) liz.notary@shaw.ca
City of Kimberley: voted to send the decision to the province
Jim Ogilvie — 250-427-2623 (Home) mayor@city.kimberley.bc.ca
City of Fernie: voted to keep the decision local
Cindy Corrigan — 250-423-2233 cindy.corrigan@fernie.ca
District of Sparwood: voted to send the decision to the province
David Wilks — 250-425-0264 (Home) mayor@sparwood.bc.ca
District of Elkford: voted to send the decision to the province
Dean McKerracher — 250-865-2303 (Home) mayor@elkford.ca
District of Invermere: voted to keep the decision local
Gerry Taft — 250-342-9281 mayor@invermere.net
Village of Radium Hot Springs: voted to send the decision to the province
Dee Conklin — 250-341-5100 dee@palliserprinting.com
