For people who care about community and quality of life
@BrentToderian is a former chief planner of Vancouver, now a consultant and speaker, renowned in the urban planning field.
Last month a couple of his tweets slid across my Twitter feed, and suddenly made Tofino’s downtown parking situation a lot clearer for me. Here’s the first: Read the rest of this entry »
by Kendal Kelly
Co-chair WCMS
The Westcoast Multiplex Society (WCMS) is a group of volunteers who are dedicating many hours of their time, with the hope that one day there will be a skating rink and swimming pool at the airport lands adjacent to the Long Beach Golf Course. The WCMS has been making slow but steady progress on the project.
Most recently, the ACRD has agreed to lease 2.2 hectares of land at the airport for the society to build on. Likewise, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed by the governments of the seven communities of the region, as well as Region C. Read the rest of this entry »
The following is an INITIAL DRAFT, posted for public comment, of MUP usage guidelines. The intent is to create a simple set of guidelines to make us all safer in our use of the ever-more-congested MUP.
This is not comprehensive — it was drafted off the top of my head with some input from local MUP users. Please add your thoughts and suggestions using the blog’s comment feature, or email me direct, and we’ll get this together for inclusion in the fall Rec Guide.
— greg blanchette aimless1@mailcan.com
MUP usage guidelines
As the name Multi-Use Path (MUP) suggests, the path is intended for mixed use. As more people use the path in a variety of ways — walking, running, biking, rollerblading, skateboarding, strollering — there is more potential for accident. These guidelines for MUP use will promote safety and minimize conflicts. Read the rest of this entry »
Well this is pretty strange.
Our district has sent out a Request for Proposals for someone to upgrade Tofino’s website. (Here is a link to the job posting; since all traces of it will likely be removed within days, here is a saved pdf of the same posting. The same RFP appeared in the most recent issue of The Westerly).
First thing weird — It was published in the Westerly on Thursday, and online on the AV Employment Centre website on Friday — but proposals have to be in by 4pm Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »
Oh, where do I start…
Well, after years of using local media to try to get Tofino to come up with a safer and more appropriate earthquake/tsunami emergency plan, to no avail, I finally went to bigger, out-of-town media, hoping to get some reaction.
And it’s finally worked! Our mayor, John Fraser, spoke on CBC Radio’s show On the Island this morning, in response to my concerns. (You can read about my concerns in yesterday’s blog post, or you can listen to them on my own CBC On the Island interview of two days ago).
For those of you who missed it, you can listen to what our mayor had to say today by clicking Read the rest of this entry »
[note: I was feeling very powerless and dejected about the state of emergency planning in Tofino when I wrote this post. My aim with this article was to at least provide Tofino locals with the information that I believed that they must have in order to adequately prepare for this big earthquake+tsunami event… which will come, we just cannot say when. I moved away from Tofino less than a year later, in large part because of the issues I’ve written below. This article has been slightly revised from the original 2010 version]
Sometimes I wish I didn’t know the things I know (see references listed at the bottom of this article).
But even if I didn’t have a PhD in Structural Geology (study of movements in the Earth’s crust, e.g. faults), and even if I hadn’t read most every scientific paper published about the earthquake and tsunami risk here on the West Coast, I think I’d be asking someone who did know. This is life-and-death stuff.
This subject is even more relevant now, with a new geological study published last month, saying that the likelihood of the big earthquake+tsunami coming within the next 50 years is nearly 4 times higher than previously thought. I sold my house on Chestermans based on the old data Read the rest of this entry »
Well, it’s certainly getting a lot of media attention. Councillor Stephen Ashton is up to 10 live interviews and counting.
Not sure how many of you heard Stephen on the national CBC Radio show Q today. He did a really good job of answering questions, and explaining what our community has to gain by this: retaining our uniqueness, our spirit, our identity. It’s both for ourselves, and for our tourism “brand” (oh I hate that word, but you know what I mean).
Jian Ghomeshi has posed it as his question of the day:
Should a community be able to ban retail chains and fast-food franchises?
As of nearing midnight, he has got well over 100 responses from across the nation – almost all of them strongly in support of the motion to ban the chains. There is even a refrain echoing in numerous posts of “Go Tofino!”
Check out the comments (you can add one there, too – or here): http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2010/03/should_a_community_be_able_to.html#comments
You can also listen to Stephen’s March 19th Q interview online – as of Friday night it has not yet been posted, but I am sure they will have it up shortly: http://www.cbc.ca/q/pastepisodes.html Click the March 19th podcast to listen to it now; to save the mp3 and listen later, right click (PC) or option-click (Mac).
Power’s been out in Tofino/Ucluelet since 3:32 am. They say the cause is “transmission circuit failure” (something to do with the wind, I guess) and that it should be back on by noon.
More info about it here: http://www.bchydro.com/outages/orsMapView.jsp?region=IslandNorth
I checked the DriveBC site – there is nothing posted about any road closure.
If anyone has any further info to add, please Comment here.
I seem to be the only person who marks this anniversary. I continue to believe that it’s important. I guess it’s against human nature to try not to think about the bad things. But when those bad things are coming — 100% for sure — and there are steps that we can take now that will save people’s lives, I feel that it is our duty to think of those bad things, and make contingency plans.
What’s happening in Haiti will happen here
This is especially on my mind right now, as I watch the tragedies unfolding in Haiti. What is happening in Haiti will happen here. About the only difference is that our earthquake will be 10 to 100 times stronger.
It’s easy to think that the consequences here will not be so bad – we’re an affluent first-world society, right? Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t know about you, but this makes me really happy and I wanted to share it.
Yesterday, I rode my bike around with my little point-and-shoot camera taking pictures of blooming flowers. To my amazement, I found 31 different types of flowers in bloom right now!
So, if you want some local pix to brighten up your day, head on over to my blog and have a look.
Tofino Residents 
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