Editor:
After long and careful consideration I have had to make the difficult decision to resign my position as North Cariboo Multi-Centre Fundraising Committee Chair.
It was in March last year when Mayor Sjostrom requested that the public step forward to help them (elected officials) work “outside of the box” and to look at different ways of raising funds for this wonderful and much needed project. So I, along with several other members of the public, stepped forward. On June 6, 2011 we had our first meeting.
Since that time our committee has worked hard to put the pieces in place to be successful in completing our task.
One of the major components of the fundraising has been to approach all the smaller, local businesses to try and get their voluntary financial support.
To do this we requested numerous times for the Quesnel and Community Economic Development Corporation and Mayor Sjostrom’s assistance in developing that part of the plan and in reaching out to those businesses for their support. Over the past year of these requests, Quesnel and Community Economic Development has promised over and over again their assistance with this matter but no assistance, guidance or any support whatsoever has come forward.
As chair of the committee I attempted on several occasions to ask the mayor for her help regarding this matter but did not even receive a reply to my phone messages and e-mails.
I, also as chair, tried on two separate occasions to arrange meetings with some of the local businesses who are the strongest supporters of this project, just to be told by the mayor and Economic Development Corp. that “our committee should just stick to raffles and bake sales and leave the rest to us.”
At committee meetings volunteers have endured derogatory and insulting jokes made by the general manager of community services about the work being carried out by those volunteers. All of this has left me unable to feel any confidence in the plan as was presented to the Joint Planning Committee in February of this year.
Over a year has passed since the fundraising committee was struck.
It has been nice to see all the support from our local community groups and individuals through out our community and for that I am truly thankful. Despite this strong support from the residents of our community we find ourselves in a deficit position of several thousand dollars and have been unable to reach out to the entire community because of restraints put on us by our elected officials.
I can not continue to give my time as a volunteer to a process that is dysfunctional and not supported by the most senior and influential members of our local governments.
Sincerely,
Eric Wickham
Quesnel
Editor’s note: For more on this story and a Multi-Centre update see Wednesday’s Observer.