By Steve Hubrecht
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After a summer of persistent petitioning from local residents, Invermere council has officially made climate change one of the district’s strategic priorities.
At its August council meeting, council members adopted a new strategic priorities chart based on recent priority sessions, and number four (of the five priorities) is: “Climate change: actions priorities chart”.
“The whole climate change topic is important, so we are going to be digging into it further and follow up on the issues,” Invermere Al Miller told the Pioneer. “We don’t know yet how that will look, how we will drill down on it. That’s the case with all the strategic priorities on the list, we are just starting in on them. But certainly climate change is now on the main list.”
The chart outlines a timeline of October for council to begin discussing the priority in more depth.
“The district has quite a lot of business on its plate, but October is not all that far away,” says Miller. “The management team will be looking at the priority, and then coming back to us with some thoughts and ideas. Climate change is such a vast topic that there are many different directions you can go with it. But there are areas in which we believe we can make a real difference.”
Council members will be looking for something that is results-oriented, explained Miller.
“Different communities in our region and all around B.C. have tackled this issue and have done a pretty good job. We want to survey them and find out what’s working well for them and what’s not working well. I’m not a believer in re-inventing the wheel,” he says.
