This month I filled some of the space between the ads with an interview with our Area A director, John Rees.
One of most common things I hear folks say about John is that even though you might not always agree with him, he knows his stuff and he works tirelessly.
Many would go so far as to declare him the best director Area A has ever seen. It’s hard to disagree. If you could measure John’s success as director in terms of the amount of outside funding plunked down in our community during his term, no one else is even close. By channelling various levels of provincial and federal funding for projects like the Area A Water Master Plan and the sports field project, Area A has received millions of dollars that it otherwise wouldn’t have.
You may have ideas about where those funds could be better spent, but because it’s "found" money that otherwise would have been earmarked to another district or municipality, we’ve all benefited from his efforts.
The regional district has had its challenges keeping up to the pace of growth on the Coast for the last few years and things aren’t perfect down on Field Road but somehow we’ve made out OK. And rightly so.
We’re the richest area on the Coast and it looks like we will be for some time. We lead all other areas in building permit applications and assessments which means we’ll likely have more infrastructure requirements as our population — or at least the number of new homes — increases.
There’s a lot of work yet to be done which makes it a little scary to consider who might fill John’s shoes when his term is up in October. On paper at least, the job’s not that attractive.
The Area A director’s lot is attending long and tedious meetings punctuated by the occasional conflict or even personal attack. Add that kind of stress to the low pay and you begin to understand that the person interested in taking on this position is deeply motivated to improve — or protect — what we all think is a pretty good place to live.
And, if that’s the measure of Rees’ success, I think he could be the winner there too.