WEDNESDAY
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OCTOBER 23, 2013
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Vol. 118, Issue 167
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PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
Council approves voting by mail in next election BY SHERI REGNIER Times Staff
With only 31 per cent of Trail residents turning up to vote in the last municipal election, council is looking at ways to give everyone the opportunity to cast a ballot in next year’s civic election. With an estimated $1,500 cost, Trail council agreed to move forward with an amending bylaw to introduce mail ballot voting in November 2014. In response to an increasing population of “snowbirds,” or residents who own property within the jurisdiction but are not present during the election, local governments have the option of instituting voting by mail. “As our population gets older more people go away,” said Coun. Robert Cacchioni during the Oct. 15 governance and operations committee (GOC) meeting. “I think we should give those people opportunity to vote.” The city currently allows for two advance voting opportunities, one held 10 days prior to the general voting and the other, three days before election day. However, there remains a groups of citizens who leave town before those dates, and wish to have their say, according to Cacchioni. “I have heard this from a few people and this is hinged on the fact that the election was supposed to be changed to October, but now that it is staying in November, there will be people who will have already left town.” Michelle McIsaac, Trail’s corporate administrator and chief election officer, said there were few queries from electors unable to attend any of the established voting opportunities in the 2008 and 2011 general location elections, but she conceded that people who do leave town prior to Nov. 5, 2014, may not be able to cast a ballot. Although proceeding with mail ballot voting would increase election costs by 10 per cent and add to the volume of work for city staff, McIsaac cited the town of Creston’s experience with the process in its previous election. “Creston is the only municipality in our area that used mail ballot previously,” she explained. “In 2011 they issued 50 mail ballot packages and had 33 ballots returned.” Trail’s last election was a close race, said Coun. Sean Mackinlay. “Being a person that is on the three-point margin, the outcome could have been totally different with mail ballot voting in the last election,” he explained. “Even if we have only one ballot cast and it does cost $1,500 I think that is a fine price to pay,” Mackinlay continued. “In my mind, I don’t think there should be a cost on election and we need to make sure everyone is represented.” McIsaac clarified that mail voting ballots will only See VOTER, Page 2
SHERI REGNIER PHOTO
The Kootenay Camas Project took root in the garden at J.L. Crowe Secondary School Tuesday morning. The project, funded by Columbia Basin Trust, has a goal to promote community awareness and stewardship of camas, a plant that is native to the West Kootenay.
Project seeks to bring back native plant BY SHERI REGNIER
A little blue flower holds the seed to historical West Kootenay culture that has almost disappeared from the natural landscape. As part of a native plant restoration initiative called the Kootenay Camas Project, BC First Nations students dug into dirt this week to grow the Camassia quamash (camas), a plant with roots that once were a dietary staple for many indigenous people. The Grade 12 students at J.L. Crowe Secondary, were given 50 seeds and bulbs in various stages of germination to sow in the high school’s garden, allowing them to monitor stages of growth during the next year. The plant can take upwards of four years to mature from seed to flower, at which time the bulbs can be harvested and used as a food source.
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Local botanist Valerie Huff, member of the nonprofit Kootenay Native Plant Society, provided the camas seeds and bulbs cultivated from her Trail garden, and held the students’ attention with discussion of the plant’s origin and threats to its natural habitat. The Camas Project sprouted from a chance encounter Huff had in the ‘80s when she first spotted the flower growing wild by the side of a South Slocan road. “This flower had me pulling over to the side of the road because it was something I had never seen before,” she said. “After research I learned it was camas and found that it was a major food crop for First Nations throughout the Columbia plateau.” Through time, the once flourishing plant, which is a low-elevation species, was crowded out by the planting of lawns and greenery non-indigenous to the area. See CAMAS, Page 3
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