Session Title: 11. Coordinated Long Term Planning of Community Services
Convenor: Bev (for Janet)
Note taker: Bev
Participants: Bev, Shirley, Geri, Dawn
Summary of discussions: Our goal is for self sufficiency as much as possible.
Core services include health care, housing, emergency services but other services that contribute to our quality of life are also important. Our rural lifestyle and sense of community is what attracts and keeps us on Saturna.
Basic assumption: we all want what is best for our diverse community.
Challenges arise when we identify gaps or needed improvements in resources or when we respond to our passions to improve or add services to our community. We are currently dealing with issues relating to 2 new firehalls, housing for Saturna Island Rescue, restoration of the foghorn building at East Point, heritage status for the Community Hall and marketing services through the Rec. Centre. There are limits on resources: numbers of volunteers and fundraising to support multiple projects. We have an aging demographic, a small core of permanent residents and many folks who are only on the island for a short time each year.
We all have expectations for services but who is to provide them, how do we pay for them, how do we balance competing demands? We need to balance differing priorities for development while maintaining the ecology and lifestyle on Saturna. Also, we often have to deal with jurisdictional issues especially when working with various levels of government.
Official Community Plan – how many of us are familiar with it? Is it still relevant?
Perhaps we need a separate overall plan for services on the island. Where do we want to be in 20 years? What will life on Saturna look like then? How will we attract and support young families, provide work opportunities on the island, and enable people to age in place?
Who should take on this task? We have a number of groups already functioning on Saturna with specific areas of focus. Would this come under one of their umbrellas? A historical perspective regarding what has evolved over time is important. We also need to move beyond past conflicts which have left “bruises” and approach this process with new energy and openness. For this reason, our group suggests that a new core group take on the task of piloting this visioning process. Once our vision is clear, we can develop a projected plan for development of services and the necessary infrastructure to support them.
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