Judy Brownoff

I’m sitting here at my computer reflecting on how fast 2009 has come and almost gone! Christmas with family and friends is winding down and 2010 looms! This time last year I was adding up my expenses from the municipal election and reflecting on why those costs were ramping up to over $10,000 for running for municipal office?

In 2009 I continued my work on raising awareness how Saanich’s residents are aging: 37% are over 50; 13.5% 60-74 and 9.5% over 75! These residents are active and we need to provide opportunities for that.

I’m pleased to be co-chair of Health Canada’s Age friendly Reference Group. This Group is working on an age friendly guide and process for Canadian communities of all sizes. Aging is happening all across Canada and all governments need to plan effectively, it’s a partnership.

The closure of Mt Tolmie Care Facility will be an issue we will need to address. For me, keeping our seniors in their community or neighborhood is part of helping them and their families enjoy those twilight years.

Finally, after many years of raising the issue during the annual Strategic Plan development, Saanich is looking at performance measures. I want to see if we are accomplishing what we tell our community, and if we are not, I want to see what our plan is to improve. I know that performance measures can highlight wounds or scars, but they are designed to help move positive improvements so that our residents can see trends, monitor our work and push for better!

Chairing the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee is like de je vu... when I was first elected I chaired the then Bicycle Advisory Committee. We were successful in getting investments in the Switch Bridge, Brett and Swan Trestles. The ridership we see on that corridor going downtown to work supports that investment. It was then that the Provincial Government started to recognize and support cycling as a viable transportation option.

Today the committee embraces pedestrian mobility as well. We were successful in 2009 in pushing for enhanced investment into the pedestrian environment. As well, we are working with the Planning Department in developing Pedestrian Design Principles such as accessible, integrated & connected, convenient, safe, comfortable and more, all as part of our Mobility Network which was adopted in our new Official Community Plan.

Our Climate Action Plan has been released and I know that as a municipality we can do our part, but it will take all of us to help in reducing our impacts. We will have to ensure that we measure our successes and challenges. We all need to know how we are doing.

I remember as a newly elected councillor coming back from my first Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference with the goal to have council adopt joining a program called FCM 20% Club (reduce our GHG emissions by 20%). You can see in the “time ladder” in our Climate Action Plan it was 1996 when we joined the program (now called Partners in Climate Protection). I remember working with Alan Hopper (our former Director of Planning) and the report recommending joining and our plan would be to plant more trees, implement more bike lanes and more density. I was pleased, but we never measured anything. This time we must develop performance measures. The same happened with a program I brought forward on replacing our light bulbs in our traffic lights to LED. Not only did I know we would save energy and maintenance costs, we never have a “reporting” on it. We all need to know that we are improving, and if not, why not, and what we can do!

Regionally, sitting as a CRD Director, this year has been one of the busiest years on the CRD Board, with many accomplishments and challenges. None more challenging for me was being the Chair of the Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee. This position allowed me to work with my colleagues in a respectful manner; ensure full discussion on issues; enable all members to contribute; listen and respect all comments from community members; ensure that community engagement was meaningful; sum up the discussion reached by the committee; and help move those discussions and debates forward to action. My time commitment for this committee 3-4 hour meetings every other week; agenda reviews on alternate weeks; and special workshops. This was on top of my other CRD committee responsibilities on the CRD Health Board; Planning and Transportation and Finance committees. This was a full year.

Reflecting on being Chair and the face and voice for the wastewater project I’m amazed at on how that role made me become the issue. Although as Chair my role is quite restrictive and really only one vote in 14. I personally thanked the committee for all their hard work as we were successful in accomplishing our amendment of 11 of the 17 chapters of the approved Liquid Waste Management Plan to the Provincial government on time. As well as having our financial application to the Federal Government submitted before the end of the year. There is much more to do but a lot was accomplished with the hard work of CRD staff, our consulting team and every member of the committee.

The Planning and Transportation committee continued to work and shape the Five Year update to the Regional Growth Strategy which will become the Regional Sustainability Strategy capturing targets on greenhouse gas emissions, transit ridership, food security and climate action and adaptation for the next five years.

This update will take the Strategy to where a number of us originally wanted it to go … a strategy on sustainability. I remember a number of us trying to put “energy consumption” into the original plan, but no. Now the times have changed and there are Provincial requirements and targets, and they will be incorporated. Why does everything take so long to capture in our planning process?

From the health facility planning issue we continue to push VIHA to be transparent and upfront with needed beds. We will keep a very watchful eye on the proposed closure of Oak Bay Lodge and Mt Tolmie and ensure that no beds are lost but more “new” beds captured. It is almost like a shell game with care beds, close and replace but we also need “new” beds, especially with our aging population!

Financial planning and budgeting are playing a key role in these times of ups and downs. At this time it looks like the CRD budget for 2010 will again be a record low at .01% increase.

This is just a highlight of some of my work in 2009. All the Best in 2010 and please feel free to contact me.