By Roy L Hales<\/p>\n
There was little discussion. The\u00a0Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board<\/a>\u00a0approved the agreements at their\u00a0August 19th meeting<\/a>. Cortes Island\u2019s two community halls and first responders are one step closer to receiving funding.<\/p>\n Chair Michele Babchuk<\/a>\u00a0and the SRD\u2019s Corporate Officer\u00a0received authorization to sign\u00a0 five year agreements\u00a0<\/a>with both the\u00a0Southern Cortes Community Association (SCCA)<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Whaletown Community Club (WCC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Board of the Southern Cortes Community Association wishes to thank the Cortes community for its ongoing support during our campaign to secure sustainable funding for Mansons Community Hall, and the Whaletown Community hall. A special thanks to Noba for her balanced and constructive leadership and to the Strathcona Regional District for passing the new funding measure,\u201d said Myrna Kerr<\/a>, President of the SCCA.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is great news but it is a long time coming. Cortes residents have been calling for stable funding of our community halls for years, so it is about time that the SRD listen to our voices and implement our community will,\u201d said\u00a0Ashley Zarbatany<\/a>, one of the WCC directors.<\/p>\n \u201cThis funding will go a long way to ensuring that the WCC is able to remain a vibrant part of our community. For years we struggled to pay our bills due to a lack of stable funding sources,\" Zarbatany added. \"Now, we will be able to focus on what we do best, which is providing services that make our community better.\u201d<\/p>\n Only core operating expenses are to be funded: electricity, heating, garbage collection, telephone and fax, internet service, property taxes, insurance, supplies and contract services related to operating and maintaining the community facility.<\/p>\n Gorge<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mansons Halls<\/a> are to receive this funding in quarterly installments.<\/p>\n The SRD Board also passed a\u00a0bylaw to authorize entering into an agreement<\/a>\u00a0for the provision of\u00a0first responder services on Cortes Island<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been a long road, and I think this is the last piece that is going to be before the board other than regular budgets, going forward,\u201d said\u00a0Cortes Island Regional Director Noba Anderson<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe next step is for the CIFFA and the SRD to write up a service provision contract while the Cortes fire chief decides on a schedule for training and a service start date, then we formally request the release of funds,\" Chris Walker<\/a>, President of the\u00a0Cortes Island Fire Fighters Association<\/a>(CIFFA), added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Roy L Hales There was little discussion. The\u00a0Strathcona Regional District (SRD) Board\u00a0approved the agreements at their\u00a0August 19th meeting. Cortes Island\u2019s two community halls and first responders are one step closer to receiving funding. Gorge and Mansons Halls Chair Michele Babchuk\u00a0and the SRD\u2019s Corporate Officer\u00a0received authorization to sign\u00a0 five year agreements\u00a0with both the\u00a0Southern Cortes Community…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":8388,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[225],"tags":[966,965,967],"radio":[252],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8386"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=8386"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=8386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Gorge and Mansons Halls<\/h2>\n
First Responders<\/h2>\n