The Cariboo Regional District (CRD) has a new chair.
Area H (Forest Grove-Canim Lake) director Margo Wagner was chosen by the board of directors for the position at the board’s meeting on Nov. 17.
Wagner has been at the board table for six years, including three years in her first term and she has serve three of the four years of her second term.
She was vice-chair of the Cariboo Chilcotin Regional Hospital District board for four years and she has chaired that board for one year.
“My term is up in January and I’m not running for that again.”
Wagner notes she won’t be making any changes with staffing because the board has hired a new chief administrative officer and the CAO is the board’s only employee. John McLean came to the CRD from the Kootenay Boundary Regional District.
“The rest of the staff is his concern. He may consult with me, but I have no issues on how he will handle the staff.”
As for the board, Wagner says there won’t be any major changes: “My biggest desire is to try to get the board a little more cohesive and some of this comes from the wildfire situation.
“It becomes very apparent that certain areas have been more harshly affected than some of the others. “We have four major municipalities within the confines of the Cariboo Regional District.
“There’s no nastiness at the board … but if we could work together on moving forward and keep one another consulted on what each is doing, we would be able to move forward cohesively.”
She says the directors would be more effective and save time and money, and have a little more impact on the provincial government.
The new chair says the North, Central and South communities in the regional district are very different in how they operate with their municipal partners.
“They all work together on certain things and some work together more cohesively that others do.
“In the South, for instance, we do our joint committee a little differently. We do our decisions by consensus as opposed to majority, but that’s what works for us because we’re a small group.
“That probably wouldn’t work well in the North and the Central.
“I wouldn’t say there is friction between the North, Central and the South … they are very different geographical areas.”
Wagner says wildfire recovery is the regional district’s biggest challenge right now.
It’s not only economic recovery, she adds.
“The wildfires had huge impacts; obviously impacting cattlemen, private land owners who have a cabin on a piece of property and the insurance is totally different on those places.
“We’ve lost a lot of timber and we have a very short window [18 months] to get some salvage logging done and that’s it.”
Wagner says it’s important to move forward both socially and mentally.
“There are a lot of traumatized people and they drive past the areas that have been severely burned and there’s still rubble from the houses that were there. There’s still the burnt toothpicks [charred trees].
“We need to get those gone because they’re a constant reminder of the fires. Even if we achieve to get them gone on the roads that go through there … but we have to [get them out of view] for those driving along the roads because it’s a constant reminder for people.”
She says the wildfire impact will raise its head again at Christmas, as people will be traumatized psychologically again.
Wagner says the Wildfire Recovery teams are doing a good job of not only talking with people and businesses about impacts, but also giving out information about where people can get some support and help.
Originally the funding was for six months, but the new CRD chair says they have already applied for a one-year funding extension “to have someone in place until March 2019.”
Starting in December, Wagner says she hopes to see all of the directors and mayors for one-on-one meetings to learn “the real nitty gritty of the director’s concern for his or her electoral areas.”
The chair adds she won’t be getting involved in the Union of B.C. Municipalities or the North Central Local Government Association.
Instead, Wagner notes she is going to continue working hard for the Forest Grove-Canim Lake Electoral Area, “so it won’t be neglected.”
She notes former CRD chair Al Richmond was a great mentor.
“I came into politics with no previous experience whatsoever. He was willing to mentor and help. I can honestly say I would not be the director I am today without Al’s guidance.”