January Quarterly Director’s Report 2019

Season’s Greetings & Happy New Year Everyone!

We hope you’ve all had a wonderful holiday and are off to a great 2019. As always, it’s been a busy fall period for your OPSRRA Board. Here’s some of the things we’ve been working on…

2018 All Candidates Meeting

We had a wonderful opportunity to hear our candidates for the CRD Director and Milne’s Landing School Trustee positions discuss their backgrounds, platforms and answer questions from the audience at OPSRRA’s all candidate meeting on September 30, 2018 at the CRD Regional Services building in Otter Point.

The session was well attended by almost 60 people and we were also fortunate to recruit several new OPSRRA members.

Jordan River and diitiida Welcome Signage

We’re very pleased to announce that we were able to secure funding for the new wooden welcome signage for Jordan River (JR) and diitiida through the generous donations of $1500 from B.C. Hydro, red cedar wood posts from Queesto, and an additional $1500 from CRD’s Grant-in- Aid Fund. We are in the process of drying the wood posts, creating the wooden sign faces, with the help of Murray Tompkins, and finalizing the signature wave design for the community. We hope to have these signs set in place by this coming spring. This will help demonstrate to the public and travellers in the area that JR and diitiida still comprise a vibrant and culturally rich community.

Community Notice Boards and Existing Community Welcome Signs Upkeep

OPSRRA also successfully received Grant-in-Aid funding from the CRD in the amount of $700 to repair and maintain notice boards in our three communities, in addition to the four large existing “Welcome” signs in Otter Point and Shirley. Unfortunately, we did not have a lot of volunteer uptake from our membership to assist the small team working on it this fall and so we’re hoping to recruit volunteers to help out when things dry out this coming spring.

We need you to make it happen! If you would like to help us out with this project in anyway, please contact our directors, Brenda at director1@opsrra.ca or Fiona at secretary@opsrra.ca.

Future CRD Regional Park Acquisitions Visioning Workshop

Your OPSRRA president, Bill Dushenko and director, Brenda Mark, participated in a workshop on November 9, 2018 at the Village Food Market Meeting Room in Sooke, to identify areas of high ecological and social value west of the Sooke River with the idea of supporting the development of a Land Acquisition Strategy for potential future CRD Regional Parks expansion.

The session was well attended and included other OPSRRA members attending in different capacities. Regional Parks staff presented a landscape analysis using best available ecological information to map and highlight areas with high natural/ecological values and potential for connectivity with existing parks and protected areas in the region. The workshop part of the session involved hearing, from the participants, any information or other knowledge missing in the landscape analysis, in addition to values on conservation and recreation in the Juan de Fuca, to better improve their analysis and development of a Land Acquisition Strategy. The Muir Creek watershed and its protection was particularly on the minds of many of the attendees. We look forward to hearing more from the CRD on their strategy in the future.

Soil Deposit and Restoration Activities on Clark Road

OPSRRA and concerned residents have been watching the activities of Granite Resources, which is proposing to deposit soil (up to 20,000 m³ ) for the purposes of restoring a tributary to King Creek, as well as road construction to support a proposed subdivision on its 58 ha property along Clark Road (Section 42) in Otter Point. The parcel was previously logged and cleared by the former owner under the Private Managed Forests Land Act resulting in damage to the creek and its riparian area.

A soil permit application has been submitted to the CRD and was reviewed by the Land Use Committee (LUC) at its meeting on December 17, 2018. It is anticipated that the overall condition of the property will be improved by the proposed watercourse and wetland restoration work. The CRD staff, in its report to the JdF LUC Meeting are, therefore, recommending “approval of the soil permit subject to the recommendations and conditions of the Environmental Overview Assessment, the conditions listed in the Approval for Works in and About a Stream from the Ministry of Environment, the conditions listed in the Permit to Construct, Use, and Maintain Access to a Provincial Public Highway from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, and subject to public notification”. If this permit is approved and restoration activities continue, residents will no doubt be monitoring activities closely to ensure that the proponent is closely following specified conditions.

All the best for the coming year everyone!