qathet Regional District Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne has clarified comments he made during a November 27 regional district meeting where meeting scheduling was being discussed.
At the January 7 regional board meeting, directors reviewed correspondence from Gavin Elkford, who took issue with a comment he attributed to Gisborne.
“I watched the November 27 meeting and was shocked when Mark Gisborne said he would need to be paid $65,000 if you continued to meet during the days,” stated Elkford in his correspondence.
“The report said that you were in meetings for 80 hours so far this year. $65,000 for 80 hours of work?” This is atrocious. If you can’t do the job you were elected for during business hours, resign from your position.”
Gisborne said he received Elkford’s correspondence through the agenda, but he hadn’t received contact information, so there was no way he could respond directly to Elkford. Gisborne said the discussion was not around directors’ remuneration, but was about board scheduling.
“I just wanted to say the comments I made were very tongue in cheek,” said Gisborne. “It was kind of going off my memory of what the median individual income was for people my age. It turns out it was actually incorrect. It’s not $65,000, it’s actually around $50,000 to $55,000.
“There was no such motion of changing the remuneration to those values. Sometimes I do a little tongue in cheek humour. My apologies for the confusion.”
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