The recently delivered Walker and Firewise reports on the governance and operations of the fire district have been an eye opener for Salt Springers. Add to that the release of 2013 compensation figures for full time members of staff, and comments like, “The fire district seems to be adrift,” and “Who is running the show here?” and “It's time for some common sense,” are flying.

We agree. It's time for a course correction. There is no need for panic or wild accusations: the Walker report concludes that fire service performance is on par or better than in other BC communities. However, twenty recommendations were made re necessary improvements in governance, and at least half a dozen more operational recommendations that suggest lapses in board oversight. The reports – for which we paid $40,000 – set ambitious timelines for resolving these open issues. Of the twenty Walker recommendations, seven have 45 day deadlines, indicating urgency. Despite this, the current board decided to defer any action until new trustees are elected in April. Any report's value is diminished if there is no will to follow through.

Our community deserves and, we believe, is ready for change. We need trustees who will commit to implementing the recommendations of the two reports. We need trustees willing to do the hard work which goes hand in hand with accountability. We need trustees who are eager to work with other community members to see the process through. We are those trustees.

We believe that the three most important recommendations from the Walker report are to:

• engage the public to address the obvious need for Hall #1's replacement (#20);
• build a professional negotiating team to engage the unionized firefighters in a constructive dialogue prior to signing a new collective agreement (#12);
• adopt a participatory and transparent model of decision making with sub-committees made up of both trustees and community members (#10).

Those will be our priorities, but our goal is to implement every recommendation before 2015 ends. It's going to be hard work.

We're up for it. One ex fire commissioner. One retired airline pilot and former town councillor. One full time educator. One mostly retired financial advisor. We have nothing in common other than an interest in seeing SSIFPD's problems solved. We have come together to do that, and we're asking for your vote on April 18th, for all four of us together.

Mitch Forest
Derek Hill
Linda Lee
Norbert Schlenker