Sunday, April 20th:

Column offering in response to the editorial in the Pictorial, April 19th

The editorial in the April 19th Pictorial has provided Cowichan with a superb opportunity to evaluate our approach to the fate of our public school lands.

A progressive bylaw (3074) amendment to the OCP in Area ’E’ has just passed 3rd reading at the CVRD table. This change will allow the regional district to better uphold the public zoning our schools currently enjoy even after closure. As land use for the collective good should be a true calling of all local governments, our elected reps must acknowledge in their policies and practices, a reverence for the fate of lands and buildings that have been turned over to public needs and fostered for generations by community contribution.

This is relevant particularly in the places where we educate our children. Schools represent much more then centres for learning – they are the warm sustaining hearts of our neighbourhoods.

As to the boarded up schools mentioned in the article – well – the Sahtlam School property is an excellent example of just what happens when a public property is withheld from the community to secure a higher price. Despite the opportunity to sell to the CVRD for community use, the school board instead baulked. It took several years but eventually the property was sold to a private individual. This has not met the best interests of that neighbourhood and the school sat in disuse during that intervening period. As a result - there is no security for the surrounding homeowners in Sahtlam and like any community that endures school closure - it adds insult to injury for them to lose the common use of the facility forever. Like many public schools – the Sahtlam property was donated to the families of that area by people who envisioned a means by which their hard won worldly possessions could be the agents of social objective. The countless title documents that attach to the donated land for schools over generations that read 'given in perpetuity for education purposes’ address a fine minded narrative. Rather than conspire against that wisdom we now must honour these endowments as they deserve to be.

Standing up for the reasonable protection of lands long since given to everyone and nurtured by everyone’s taxes does not restrict the growth of our community. But – the loss of these properties will change forever the quality of our lives and the choices we can make.

Right now a number of other jurisdictions in Cowichan are going ahead with a bylaw modification that reflects the same principles as the amendment to the Area 'E' bylaw 3074. Rather than suffering an inflammatory and extremist assault in the press– thinking citizens should applaud this development.

This amendment speaks to great changes in our understanding of what it means to care for community. It suggests that our elected reps are listening to us – not as a so-called special interest group but as the growing majority of forward thinking community members.

These properties are our birthright – their value is beyond estimation. The short term thinking that is indifferent to our long term needs will be swept away. The current crisis in public education funding must not be employed to excuse reckless divestment. Nothing lasts forever – not even funding formulas.

I invite everyone in our valley particularly the author of the editorial to take a stroll through the minutes and the 64 submissions that this bylaw amendment inspired. I should point out that only one of those submissions opposed this initiative – all the rest speak in a voice that demonstrates an advancing consciousness about public needs and the value of our common lands.

Eden Haythornthwaite, School Trustee / Cowichan District
250-709-7975