Westerly News
News updates: westerlynews.ca
INSIDE THIS WEEK:
The Westerly’s West Coast Winter Guide has top tips for SUP paddle on in! PAGE7-14
Ladies Night on the Links: Sisterhood of the Travelling Golf Cart PAGE 19
Almost Home: Monk’s Point could be Tofino’s soon PAGE 2
Local venues, all starting with W, earn some nice accolades PAGE 13
September 16, 2015 Wednesday
$1.25 [INCLUDING TAX]
Serving Tofino and Ucluelet
ILLEGAL CAMPING: GIMME SHELTER
SLEEPLESS IN TUFF
No roof? No problem - and that’s a problem, for some folks ANDREW BAILEY
INSIDE: Opposing views of illegal camping - Nora O’Malley
Westerly News After suffering a somewhat tumultuous summer in terms of bylaw infractions, Tofino’s municipal council is already working on a plan for next year. Coun. Duncan McMaster brought a motion to council last week to direct staff to review the district’s bylaws, specifically ‘Public Property Use Regulation Bylaw, No. 1098 2009, and bring back recommendations regarding how to better control nuisances and disturbances like illegal camping, noise, and littering. McMaster explained he was frustrated by the lack of enforcement of Tofino’s bylaws over the summer. “I don’t think there’s been a day this summer that I haven’t had a complaint from a member of the public whether it be an email, someone knocking on my door, or a phone call,” he said. “I’d just like to get the bylaws sorted out so if we do want to enforce something we can do it. I’ve had lots of complaints about how many warning tickets have to be given out before we actually do anything.” He suggested the Public Property
Page 5
The camping dilemma - Jackie Carmichael
Page 6 Use Regulation Bylaw doesn’t put enough onuses on the district’s bylaw enforcement team to act. “The tone of the existing bylaw is very much, ‘You as a member of the public should do this and should do this and then we as bylaw may do this,’ he said. “I think as taxpayers, the public wants to hear a little bit more of ‘bylaw will do this’…I think we need to update this bylaw because
TAKE A
WILD SALMON 7:30-9:30 PM
See ILLEGAL, Page 18
DR. ALEXANDRA MORTON
SPECIAL GUEST NAASAŁUK
FOR
SEPT 23, 2015
what the words in the bylaw are,” he said. “It was a very busy summer for law enforcement in Tofino and I think that everyone involved would like to have things to have been different than they were.” He added district staff are speaking with local police about how bylaws can be better enforced.
AN EVENING WITH
STAND
WEDNESDAY
I don’t want to see a Penticton happen in Tofino.” District CAO Bob MacPherson suggested council can expect to hear staff request more resources towards bylaw enforcement during future budget deliberations. “Certainly the content of the bylaw is one of the things we do need to deal with, but how we’re resourcing the enforcement, I think, is probably more important than
JOHN RAMPANEN
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