bowenislandundercurrent.com
BARKING UP A NEW TREE: Bowen Island Dog Ranch reopens
Thursday, October 29, 2020 • A1
$1.50
PAGE 6
inc. GST
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2020
ALL ABOUT HALLOWEEN
VOL. 46 NO. 43
BIUndercurrent
BowUndercurrent www.bowenislandundercurrent.com
Our scary season guide PAGES 89
Decaying obstacles
MUNI MORSELS: COMPOSTING, TRAFFIC CALMING AND WHAT HAPPENS BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
BRONWYN BEAIRSTO
Editor@bowenislandundercurrent.com
KAREN MUNRO PHOTO
WAITING FOR THE MAILIN COUNT: A couple of skeletons on Whitesails Dr. have a socially
distanced visit. Many homes on Bowen are preparing for the scariest night of the year (see where they are on p. 9).
Sea to Sky (maybe) goes Green
GREEN VALERIOTE MAY UNSEAT LIBERAL STURDY STEVEN CHUA, JENNIFER THUNCHER
Squamish Chief
It could be a fall of a decades-strong dynasty. At close of election night, Green candidate Jeremy Valeriote was leading in
the initial ballot count, showing that a once-underdog party had a real shot at cracking a Liberal stronghold. With at least two weeks’ time from election night before mail-in ballots can be counted, there will be a lengthy delay before the final results of the vote
NEW LISTING 923 Elrond’s Court, Bowen Island
$1,328,000
Personal Real Estate Corporation
can be posted. Locally, an unprecedented number of people have registered to vote by mail because of the pandemic, meaning up to 7,704 votes — the number of mail-in ballot packages issued in this riding — won’t be counted for some time. CONTINUED ON P. 12
The following are briefs from the Oct. 27 council meeting. It’s taken years to break down the barriers to an on-island composting facility, not the least of which was cost. Monday, at its regular meeting, council directed staff to apply for an $800,000 provincial CleanBC grant and $100,000 Knick Knack Nook grant for the project. The remainder of the nearly $1.2 million project would come from a Municipal Finance Authority of BC equipment loan, said a staff report. An on-island composting facility would mean cutting out the increasing Metro Vancouver tipping fees and trucking costs of hauling green waste off the rock. As well, BIM would sell the compost product of the HotRot system wholesale (an estimated $10 a yard). Bowen Island FoodResilience Society has voiced interest in purchasing some of the compost, improving its quality by allowing it to mature (as BIM doesn’t have the space to store the compost long enough for this process to take place) and reselling it to recoup costs. The staff report estimates costs of $10,600 for the first five years of the facility and then savings of $51,700 for the four years following that. On-island composting is at least a couple of years out given regulations and other hoops to jump through, said Bonny Brokenshire, Parks and Environment Planning manager, at the meeting. The grant decisions would likely come down in summer 2021. CONTINUED ON P. 7