The past month was a whirlwind of meetings, convention, conference, the Lieutenant Governor’s visit and many more interesting events.
Wanting to provide an experience a little different than usual council took Her Honour Judith Guichon to Castle mountain for a breathtaking view of Fernie and a small reception, a display of dirt jumping, a tour of the mine rescue and miners walk and a public reception at the Library.
Two days of meetings at Regional District followed and then Mine Rescue competition won by our Coal Mountain Team. It was a pretty exciting to hear they had won over teams coming from the USA and Canada.
I met the descendants of William Fernie who donated original letters from Fernie, the family loved our beautiful museum and our town and the letters will add some much needed personal information on Fernie.
The elected officials meeting was hosted by RDEK and Area A Mike Sosnowski this year with representatives from southern Alberta as well as mayors McKerracher, Halko and council members and staff . This provides opportunity to find out what everyone is doing and to cement good relations with elected officials in our neighbouring province.
The next day Mayor Halko, McKerracher and I flew to Vancouver to attend the Coal Conference. This was Lois’s and my first attendance but Dean has been before and it was quite amazing to see him in action. He is not shy about going up to people and introducing himself and in no time we were chatting with attendees from around the world regarding coal and other related businesses. Teck senior vice president and chief operating officer Ian Kilgour acknowledged our presence to the attendees and thanked us for attending.
Past owner of Grand Cache Coal Robert H. Stan was presented with the Award of Distinction and in his address mentioned working at Fording saying “It was an interesting time in the eighties. In 1986 the bottom fell but in 1987 there was a correction in the coal market, I started to understand and enjoy the coal business, we were first to sell coal into Iran and Europe, in order to be successful I had to set out to find smart people.Working with tremendous amount of good people helped me look good, learned from them to appreciate and I worked with most talented people you can imagine, the team made my job much easier than it should have been, but now we need to get facts out, not emotional, coal is the most abundant energy source on the planet, it has fueled and will continue to be the economic growth in the world, if you suffer energy poverty, coal will make the better able to develop societies with cheap energy, developing nations will not accept it but it is an honorable business, steel coal fired plants are here to stay”.
During the three day conference there were panel discussions and presentation by leading authorities. Analysts, consultants, presidents and vice- presidents, and general managers spoke led by moderator Gerard McCloskey, accepted as a world authority and adviser to numerous banks, power, steel and coal companies globally as well as addressing European and British parliamentary assemblies and committees. He is also a journalist working for the Financial Times as well as being press secretary to ministers in the Margaret Thatcher government.
I came away from this experience realizing that this Valley is well known and that many of the big names had cut their teeth working in the local mines. It was also obvious that coal mining is considered to be the one economic driver that can boost a country from being poverty stricken to one with a great standard of living. It was articulated that it is required to put the facts out that coal is not the awful thing made out to be by some although they also want to make sure that everything possible is done to mitigate any negative effects of resource extraction.
UBCM followed with a meeting on Sunday evening of the Highway 3 coalition of mayors who have identified priorities some of which have been addressed. Locally Alexander Creek Bridge, Sparwood passing lane, Olson Crossing, Galloway Flats and Wardner passing lane have all been completed. Creston will get a signalized intersection at Pine and Highway 3 where the grain elevators are as part of a total realignment of the intersection. At the meeting with Premier Clark and Minister of Transportation Todd Stone I got a surprise bit of recognition with the Premier requesting a photograph with me before one with the entire group.
The schedule of events at this conference is huge. It begins at 7:00am and ends late in the day. Besides the tours, clinics and forums there are meetings with ministers. I attended the Mayors Caucus on Monday and the Resort Municipalities meetings where we heard four success stories form different communities. The next day there was a West Fernie Servicing and Restructure project meeting with Minister Coralee Oaks, separate meetings with Minister Stone and Minister Thomson regarding Elk River assessment, meetings with BC Hydro regarding the substation and placing lighting along portions of highway three leading to Dicken Road as well as attending plenary sessions and voting for new members to the UBCM executive. A highlight was keynote speaker Stephen Lewis who spoke about the horrors of the AIDS epidemic in Africa as well as global efforts to address sexual violence.
Back home Saturday I was honored to give an address as mayor to the classes of 1962, 63,64, and 65. Eighty people gathered at the Best Western ballroom to enjoy an evening of reminiscing and catching up with old friends. As these were all people I knew it was wonderful to speak with them some of whom I haven’t seen in over forty years.
Sunday was the grand opening of the energy diet program and the new playground at Max Turyk.
Monday was a public hearing for the RDEK and a regular meeting of Council that proved to be anything but regular as the contentious topic of home based business changes to Area A affecting Hosmer and south was on the agenda. After hearing the delegations speak Council shifted their decision to not support this request.
Tuesday had a meeting of the CBT Community Directed Funds with RDEK planner, mayors, director of Area A, representatives from the valley and CBT and Zumundo the company hired to do consultation with all communities.
Wednesday brought another public meeting for the RDEK in Hosmer Hall, Thursday a meeting with Columbia Power reps and Friday meetings regarding a number of initiatives in the works for this area.
A highlight was the grand opening of the Museum held on Saturday, Sunday evening was a tribute to retiring minister Dennis Williamson of Trinity Pentecostal church and Monday ended the month with a grand opening of the newly modernised Seniors Centre thanks to Jim and Alice Booth and executive of the Centre.
