Christina Lake looking for expanded and new services
By Michael Wirischagin
Service expansion and referendum questions were the focus of a town hall meeting at Christina Lake this week along with their annual regional budget and service review. Area Director Grace McGregor announced that she has been working with both the library and the museum to develop outreach locations in the small community. These along with the possibility of having two referendum questions on this November’s election ballot asking area residents their take on a possible Cascade cemetery and a bylaw enforcement officer means that the sleepy waterfront community may be moving towards a very busy summer leading up to this fall’s election. The Regional District of the Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) electoral area C held its fifth annual town hall budget meeting this past Monday, Feb. 7 at the Community Hall in Christina Lake. Roughly 40 people attended the gathering hosted by Area C Director Grace McGregor and the RDKB’s Chief Administrative Officer John MacLean that went over the basic proponents of Area C’s 5-year financial plan and dealt more with issues than numbers.
Director McGregor said that discussions have taken place between Heather Buzzell of the Grand Forks and District Public Library about locating a satellite pick-up and drop off library location at the Lake. McGregor stated that because Christina Lake pays the most money into the library service out of Areas D, C, and the City of Grand Forks that they should in some way see some benefit in their locale. “The Motor Inn has agreed to let us use some space and now were are looking at partners for the program,” said McGregor although she could not confirm a starting date for the service. Area C also pays an annual $10,000.00 towards the museum services and, like the library, McGregor wants to see some of that money stay in the Christina Lake community. “We are looking at having some sort of museum service located at our Welcome Center,” explained McGregor. “A sort of welcoming heritage display for tourists.” Two possible referendum questions were last on the agenda for the town hall meeting: 1, would you support a bylaw enforcement service? And 2, would you support a cemetery service located at Cascade? Neither possible referendum question came with numbers attached but when questioned, McLean said that once they determine the referendum questions that they would have figures attached. “We will give high numbers for the services,” explained McLean to the gallery. “We would not want to give inaccurate or low costs just to come back to you and say ‘ooops, we need more money.’ Once we have the figures we will give them to you.” McGregor said that the bylaw enforcement question has been asked twice in the past- both times it was defeated.
B.C. municipal and regional elections are to be held on Saturday, Nov. 19.
