November's municipal election race has (unofficially) begun.
Nerys Poole, who first won election in 2008 as a councillor, is making a bid for mayor.
With Bob Turner's decision not to seek a second term as mayor, Poole believes that it's important to have continuity from one council to the next.
She also thinks that her experiences as a lawyer, chair of several non-profit agencies and long-time Islander can be of benefit.
"Experience counts," she says in an interview. "It is critically important to have people who have been there [on council] before and understand how things work."
Poole started coming to Bowen in 1963 and moved here permanently when she retired in 2005. She was a lawyer with the province's Attorney General, defending government decision making. In winning her first bid for council in 2008, she also won a seat on the Islands Trust.
Poole says she has some specific ideas of what she'd like to achieve in the next three years.
The first is ensuring the municipality's financial shape is in order. "I think we're in good shape for next year," she says. The municipality has been investing in infrastructure, including increasing the roads budget from $300,000 to $500,000, upgrading the sewage treatment plant, installing the artificial turf field, and approving a satellite fire hall on the western side of the island.
"These are all necessary but we've been lowering the reserves. We need a good solid savings account."
She also has some "pretty strong ideas about managing the workload of council and staff."
She'd like fewer council meetings, a financial committee and a clearer definition of council's role. Council should set policy and leave the day-to-day operations to staff. If, for instance, an Islander complains about a road, that complaint should be passed on to the CAO, who will decide how best to deal with it. It's not the councillor's role to go to the roads department to say the pothole should be fixed.
"Council has one employee and that's the CAO and that's where any concerns should be raised. We need tighter discipline."
Poole has been accused of putting her desire to preserve the island's natural state ahead of calls for new housing. "I'm definitely a believer in managing growth." What about stopping it?" "No. A certain amount of growth is possible."
The Official Community Plan has set out the island's vision of the future and now it's council's role to set land-use guidelines about how to achieve that. But she says she's learned a lot in her first year of council about how that should be done.
"It's important not to take a draft bylaw to the people," she says. If a problem is identified and a need for a bylaw arises such as steep slope protection first council and staff should identify broad objectives; then, identify stakeholders who can contribute to formulating policies. After that, this broad-stroke outline should be taken to the public. Based on public reaction and input, a draft bylaw can be formulated.
This November, there's at least one new political organization on the island. OneBowen is going to be announcing its slate of candidates; by having people who are committed to certain beliefs and objectives, and stating those objectives clearly in the campaign, islanders can elect a council that can move forward with achieving those goals.
Poole says that "the information they've put out is feel-good stuff" and she, like everyone, can agree with the objectives. "It all makes sense." However, she adds, "I'm not sure we need a slate on Bowen."
She also thinks it would be wrong to have an entire council of new faces. Her first term on council "would have been a lot more challenging for the newbies if we didn't have experienced councillors there. It was critically important to have people who had been there before and understood how things work."
She "really believes that diversity on council is important and we've benefited from that. We do listen to each other and sometimes we change our votes based on what others have to say."
As to a "Poole, Turner and [Doug] Hooper cabal, there were certainly a number of issues where we didn't always vote in uniform."
