Advisory committees are the top priority for View Royal’s mayor-elect, Sid Tobias

View Royal mayor-elect Sid Tobias is to be sworn in tonight, and he’s kicking off the term with a proposal for seven new advisory committees. The new committees represent Tobias’s commitment to harness the expertise of View Royal residents.

“During the campaign I came to appreciate that there is so much passionate talent in View Royal,” he told The Westshore. “These are people who command significant hourly fees if we were to pay them, yet they're more than willing to dedicate their time and energy to make View Royal a better place to live.”

Last term, View Royal had two advisory committees that met monthly at most: A community development committee and one for parks, recreation, and environment.

Seven citizen-led advisory committees proposed

If council approves the motion, View Royal will have committees for: finance and administration (with liaison Sid Tobias); protective services (Don Brown); parks and recreation (Damian Kowalewich); environment (Alison MacKenzie); arts and culture (Gery Lemon); planning, development and engagement (Ron Mattson); and public works and transportation (John Rogers).

The seven committees will have council liaisons, but they’ll be steered by the citizen representatives.

Calling them “liaisons” is deliberate, since Tobias thinks councillors spent too much time chairing the two committees in the past. This time around he plans to give them a mandate to allow them to come to the end of the meeting and hear a briefing of their discussion. He also sees the committees as a place for each councillor to check in with residents on ideas and proposals in their areas of responsibility.

On top of these new advisory committees, there are 26 regional committees to be shared between the council of seven—such as the Capital Regional District board, where it’s likely that Tobias will be a director, the Westshore parks and recreation committee, South Island Prosperity partnership, and the Te’mexw treaty advisory committee.

Tobias has penciled himself in to be on 12 committees, including council and committee of the whole; he and new councillor Don Brown will also be alternates to each View Royal committee. Tobias said that’s because even though Brown is new to council, he comes with useful experience that can help address complex issues.

“I want to give us some capacity to be able to respond to what we haven't even thought of yet.”

Applications for locals to join the committees will be open on the View Royal website if the motion to add these committees is approved tonight.

Colwood's committee commitment

Colwood’s mayor-elect Doug Kobayashi was elected on a similar platform of greater consultation with the community. And likewise, one of his first initiatives will be to establish citizen committees. Specifics about what the committees will oversee is still to come since Colwood’s new council will be sworn in next week on Nov. 7.

But Kobayashi said they’ll be similar to Saanich’s committees—and less like Langford’s.

Langford has had community advisory committees for several years; they were established around 2016. But there is a perception that the committees are stacked with developers, insiders, and business owners with personal stake in decisions, and overall don’t provide a meaningful place for community input.

In an all-candidates meeting before the election, outgoing councillors Roger Wade and Matt Sahlstrom were asked about meaningful engagement with various groups in Langford. Both said the best way to get involved in Langford is to apply to join the committees, even though committee openings were rare.

A quick search of the names on Langford committees include several people who are developers or relevant business owners. The planning, zoning and affordable housing committee includes Kent Sheldrake who owns Sheldrake Construction and is a co-owner of Draycor Construction Ltd.; Art Creuzot who owns Luxbury Homes; and formerly Malcolm Hall who built the Airbnb-style hotel in Langford, SoLo Suites, and owns Lifestyle Ventures development company.

The transportation and public works committee has Les Bjola, owner of Turner Lane Development Corp., and Nicholas Johal who works at NAN Site Servicing. Protective services includes Mike Wignall, president of Westbrook Consulting Ltd., and a member of the Westshore Developers Association. The Board of Variance, meant to operate independently from council, has Cliff Curtis, who owns TBJ Properties, Jim Hartshorne, owner of Keycorp Developments Ltd.; development consultant Rachael Sansom; and Ron Coutre, who owns SouthPoint Partners Ltd. and is president of the Westshore Developers Association.

Tobias wasn’t aware Langford had committees, but said looking at Langford, it makes sense that they had developers on their planning committees. As for his committees, he’s looking for a cross section of residents, not people in the business.

“Limited interest groups like developers, I would not see them as being good candidates for the planning committee,” he said. “On the transportation committee, I would like to see people who take the bus downtown every day or actively commute by bicycle, rather than people that don't, because they could represent better issues that are affecting them on a day to day basis.”