Having grown from 50 members to 300 in two years, Westview Ratepayers Society is active in fostering community engagement, reducing polarization and presenting balanced information, according to its president.
“Westview Ratepayers Society has been growing dramatically since its inception,” said Rick Craig. “The other thing that is quite significant is that one year ago, we launched the Powell River Ratepayers Facebook page. We’re now at over 800 members, and in fact, we’re finding that every week, we are getting more and more people joining.
“That growth is a result of the fact that we’re trying to walk a middle line and to be very careful and factual about what we do. That is attracting people who are interested in what we’re doing.”
Craig said sometimes, the society is advocating issues, but a major focus is information and education.
“We feel the biggest problem is that many people don’t understand what’s going on and they don’t know where to get the information,” said Craig.
He said the society’s organization is structured to be responsive to community representation. The society is run by an executive, which meets monthly, and there are also five committees involving a wide range of volunteers. These committees focus on finance, education, communications, supportive housing and public safety.
“What we are finding is we are getting more information out, which is attracting more interest and more volunteers; the more volunteers we have, the more we can do,” said Craig. “An example is last year, our education committee organized three events. They did an all candidates meeting [for the provincial election]. We did a major meeting on supportive housing. We also did a session on DRIPA [Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’s Act]. This year, we’ll probably do three or four events like that.”
In the coming year, Westview Ratepayers Society has some major goals. Craig said one of them is that the society is going to undertake a major membership drive.
“We think there are more people who are interested and we’re going to reach out to them,” said Craig. “We are also going to continue building the coalition with the other ratepayer groups. We’ve had them come together with us on several presentations to council, and that is only going to get deeper and stronger. What the coalition does is it allows us to have our local identities, but at the same time, come together and work together and be far more effective than any one of us could be on our own.”
Also this year, the education committee is talking about organizing a finance town hall, probably in February, because the society wants to bring out residents and explain municipal finances and taxation. There are also plans to have another meeting on DRIPA, with representatives from Pender Harbour coming to talk about concerns they have regarding the dock management plan that affects docks on the lower and upper Sunshine Coast, which has been launched by shíshálh Nation. Pender Harbour representatives will be outlining the court case they have launched.
Craig said if there is going to be a federal election this spring, the society will probably organize an all candidates meeting.
The society has met with Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Randene Neill regarding supportive housing and there will be continued work on addressing concerns so the model works better, according to Craig. Also in the plans for public safety is a block watch program, and planning for a city-wide block party day so there can be more community building.
“We’d love to get 20 or 30 or 40 blocks all partying on the same day,” said Craig.
Westview Ratepayers Society, according to Craig, is trying to walk the middle path.
“We’re saying, look, we're nonpartisan,” said Craig. “We are not supporting any political group. We want people who represent the diversity of the community and we want all those voices.
“Answers are often complex, but if we can find common ground, we can work together to try to find common solutions.”
Craig said an example of this is supportive housing. He said the society wants to help the clients, but at the same time, wants the community to be okay and not impacted.
Another function of the society is to challenge city council, according to Craig.
“People get elected and they need to know what the community thinks,” said Craig. “Our credibility depends on us trying to be as accurate as we can be, and as non-polarizing as we can be. That’s the ethos we need to bring to our organization.
“We’re responsive to concerns about anything that affects the quality of life of people living here. It can be provincial, it can be federal or local. If it has an impact, or if it’s going on in the community, we will try to educate on it.”
For people interested in joining Westview Ratepayers Society, the email for more information is [email protected].
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