Three months in...

It has been a whirlwind first three months in office....to say the least!  
I am on 8 committees, plus I chair the Parks and Rec.Operations Committee. Its all been a very steep learning curve and I have enjoyed every minute of it thus far.
I hope to add to this blog periodically, but my experience thus far has that if folks want to discuss an issue and want answers they prefer a discussion almost immediately, hence I have been dealing with answering people either by email or via my cell.
Here is my contact info:
darryloakley2011@gmail.com
C: (250) 427-8907
I have spent a lot of time initially dealing with the deer cull issues. And now I will be working with the deer committee on community outreach/education/compliance issues. We have a very dedicated group on the deer committee and I am extremely thankful for that.
The Nature Park committee also has many dedicated volunteers on it. I am looking forward to working with everyone to keep the "nature" in the nature park.
The Kimberley Transportation committee will be hosting a transportation review by BC Transit soon. It should be interesting to see if Kimberley taxpayers want changes to the schedules, especially the seniors in Kimberley.
The SPARK Society is gearing up to reach out to Kimberley youth, with many new initiatives and programs applied for. Volunteers were also busy shovelling off the rood of the Spark centre last week, due to some nasty leaks. Thanks to the volunteers.
The Mark Creek Integrated Water Management committee will meet soon. They are seeking times that all the members can meet. The agenda is packed with items for discussion, so this will probably be a full day meeting.
I have also been heavily involved in meetings to prepare for public open house meetings regarding the Mark Creek Flume Replacement project. That is a huge project and public meetings are about to start.
The Sun Mine process continues to move forward with Mayor McRae at the helm. More info on the status of the Sun Mine should be forthcoming. It's a very complex project as well, so every step of the way forward is slow and with caution. More on this soon, I'm sure.
When I get a few extra minutes in my life, I go skiing. What a great little town we live in.
Send me an email or call me on my cell if you have any questions. 
Cheers
Darryl
  

    

Thanks Kimberley

Wow!
It has been a crazy couple of days, thats for sure. Many thanks to all who called me on sunday morning with kind words and congratulations - that was awesome. I am deeply touched by all of the words of encouragement, thanks everyone.
Some people have asked and yes I will continue to use this blog. I will also use my darryloakley2011@gmail.com  for contact with everyone as well.
Thanks to my family Karen, Patti and Bryn for being my foundation of support through the entire campaign. My mother for being the best campaign cheerleader that a son could ever ask for. Many thanks to Loni and Vern Leinweber for helping with my campaign signs, and for their words of encouragement. Thanks to everyone who offered to place a sign on their front lawns. Thanks to Marthel Scand for being such as strong support for me - "you are the best Marthel".

To everyone who offered words of support and encouragement in passing on the streets and stores of Kimberley....many many thanks, it was wonderful to hear from you.    
Darryl Oakley

Kimberley... small town vitality.

Hello Kimberley!!

I think Kimberley is indisputably the best small town on the planet...and I want to be part of making it even better! If elected to Kimberley City Council I will bring a ton of positive energy to City Hall.

We cannot move forward as a healthy community - chock full of excellent services - unless we keep an eye on the financial health of our municipality. All the good things that we enjoy in our community stem from solid financial health, so we need to make sure our tax base stays healthy and that our surplus grows back to the (minimum) one million mark.

It's an incredibly exciting time for Kimberley! I want to be part of the team that supports our city and makes sure it operates in a sustainable, healthy manner - benefiting young and old.

Ultimately, I want to make sure Kimberley remains as the "Can Do" community that it has always been. Kimberley is a proud city, with a very proud heritage. It is an affordable, safe, clean place to raise a family.

Kimberley is the living definition of community vitality - and I will work to make it even better.

Darryl Oakley

Candidates Forum Nov 8th - What "Really" happened on the Mckim stage.

McKim School

"Life is sweet... life is sooo sweet". I thought to myself - many times, actually - as the council candidates forum started and progressed into the evening. The moments were precious, and I needed to hang onto them.  We were 16 individuals all doing our best to tell our stories to the packed theatre. For me (and I'm sure for others) it was a very special time. Although the light was toned down over the audience, I kept looking around as best as I could, picking out faces in the crowd that I recognized. It was a remarkable event for many reasons for many different people, but for me the energy, ambiance, camaraderie, and sheer love of community were in abundant supply. It was a night where my "sense of place" in small town Kimberley became cemented to a level that I could never have imagined. We were all Kimberley characters painting a picture of our sense of place on the living canvas called Kimberley. I think the capacity crowd that showed up appreciated all of our efforts to "paint".  Some of the candidates were painting with wild brush strokes, while others were more conservative, painting fine lines. All of the "painting" was extremely colorful and vibrant.
I could not have picked a more priceless place to sit: Kent on my left and Tim on my right. Right beside Tim was Craig. If this were a scene from high school, a teacher would have immediately sensed trouble with "that row", and split us up right away.  It has been many years since any of us had been a student in a high school. However, a sense of camaraderie and a sense of "we are in this together" - if for no other reason than our hearts sing in unison for this town.
Playful mischievousness on stage was tempered only slightly when Tim was asked to hold the mic further away from himself so it would not be so loud. Instead Tim did a "playful" sound check with the mic even closer to his mouth, causing the audience to cover their ears and complain. Realizing his impact, Tim glanced at Craig and I with a look of mild surprise, as he came back to his seat and said "whoops...I think I just lost a few votes". The look on Tim was priceless - because he loves this town as much as the rest of us - when he realized that while the "sound check" may have got him elected to student council in high school, possibly it may have a different effect with this audience.

Later, after I had described how my grandfather and grandmother had moved to Kimberley in 1920 ( in my opening remarks) and was on my way back to my seat that Craig leaned towards me and whispered; "when my turn comes, I'm going to start it with...in 1492...". 

And so as the evening evolved, and our (random) speaking order numbers were selected  and written down on a small whiteboard by Craig Campbell, Kent and I were a little surprised when both of our numbers were not showing up. We were simply not getting the chance to speak. Of course - eventually - everyone had a turn to speak, but not before a few "psst...psst" were sent towards Craig.             
      
The evening was truly full of beautiful, loving moments. For me one of those moments was seeing Mellisa speak so proudly about Kimberley, while coping perfectly with a condition that can hamper public speaking. As I sat listening to her, I could not have been prouder of anyone else on stage.

When Bev finished speaking, whispers of "right on, Bev" always followed her back to her seat. Her words were saturated with heartfelt moments.

This went on all night, one speaker after another bravely grabbing the microphone and sharing their priorities and love of community with the audience.
In McKim theatre on Tuesday night, the sound system may have been too loud once in a while, but the environment was saturated with a heaping dose of "Sense of Place", and - after all - that is what makes Kimberley such a special little town.
Darryl Oakley        

  

1000 hours

Purcell Soccer Park, Marysville

Never underestimate the power of passion!  

I remember a conversation with Pete Campbell, Andy Gray, Paul Daprocida and Mark McKinley a few years ago. I listened while they described  their dream of a high-quality, multi-field soccer park, able to accommodate major tournaments. We were standing on the site, surveying what was then a small softball/soccer combination, with more weeds than grass. I loved the idea and the concept, but honestly I could not fathom that a workforce of volunteers could actually get this monster project going, let alone done. It needed, massive amounts of fill, many many hours of heavy equipment time just to carve the plateau so that instead of accommodating one field, there would be enough room for three full soccer fields. It would also need a ton of grader time, just to level all this dirt, let alone fine- tune the soccer field to just the right angle.  At first glance, I had a hard time imagining how this could get done... the equipment time alone was in the tens of thousands of dollars, let alone the cost of the underground sprinkler system, the time to trench all the fields, and the time and cost to seed. It was a massive project that boggled my mind.  And then they described their vision of the timberframe clubhouse, with massive deck and large rock landscaping, overlooking the fields. I was having a hard time imagining this stuff. I even remember city council commenting after being briefed on the project, "It seems rather ambitious" came the cautious reply from council.

Soon enough, various key players in Kimberley were involved - including Teck, who just so happened to be looking for clay for Cow Creek and was willing to pay for the heavy equipment to move it. When I heard of that stroke of good luck from Pete Campbell, I realized that this was no pipe dream - it was going to happen.

 Fast forward to this past spring and summer. Volunteer work crews spent countless evenings and weekends on site at Purcell, digging out trenches, cutting and gluing irrigation pipe, weeding and raking, planting hundreds of huge trees... the list of things to do seemed endless. Volunteers appeared out nowhere, even members of council showed up ready to work. My mother-in-law even made fresh Huckleberry pies for all the crew one Saturday - a hit with all the volunteers!

The fields have grassed- in beautifully, the trees love the drip lines that Pete and Andy hooked up to them, and plans are in the works for major soccer tournaments, starting with the Julyfest tourney next summer and continuing on with high school soccer. The Purcell soccer complex is already a much talked about success story, and it hasn't even  been used yet.

Last month I heard Pete talking clubhouse again... it doesn't end! (and -I'm sure- it will get done)

Something that hasn't been talked about is the volunteer time. In a small town, if you want to get something done you just go do it, regardless of time. That's the can-do attitude, for sure. I know that Pete and Andy each put in massive amounts of time in this project - as much as a thousand individual hours. Now that's mind boggling...but not surprising - this is Kimberley and these are very passionate people, after all!

Well done you guys!

Darryl Oakley

       

   

Kimberley Trails Society

  Moes Canyon

If you are wondering what the new face of Kimberley looks like, who the next generation of trail stewards are, you simply needed to see the gathering of 60 plus people at the Kimberley Trails Society AGM at the Kimberley Nordic Centre on Tuesday (Nov 1).   It was an environment bursting with energy and enthusiasm, with a young and senior mix, including many toddlers walking around wearing their their brightly knit toques - wonderful! PP presentations updating various trail projects around Kimberley included an update on a downhill mountain bike course West of Horse Barn Valley. Images showed some of the bermed corners constructed of slab rock - built to last approximately 500 years!!!

The Kimberley Trails Society was formed in 2009 to develop, maintain and protect recreation trails in around Kimberley, primarily for non-motorized use. The Society already has some excellent experience working with various key players in order to develop new trails and protect older ones. Some of the descriptions included   how Society members worked with Tembec in Lois Creek to preserve trails while logging was taking place. Wayne Pelter described a - work in progress - new trail along the St.Marys river to be named after James Ritchie, a true labor of love dedicated to Jim. Wayne's description of required trail work was full of emotion, dedication and love for Jim - very moving.    Others described potential trails along the south side of St.Marys river.  The list seems endless - wow!

So what does the future hold for this grassroots organization? The future is very bright, members described a goal to eventually employ professional trail builders, based in Kimberley, much like Squamish has done.

By the looks of things Kimberley's adventure trail map is going to grow. Now here is a small industry with a bright future! 

Roy Moe Sr. would have been very proud of this dedicated group.

Kudos to the Kimberley Trails Society.  https://sites.google.com/site/kimberleytrailssociety/

Darryl Oakley

 

   

Adventures in Platzl

On Friday I had a chance to spend a few hours going from business to business in the Platzl. The plan was simple enough... open business door, walk in, introduce myself and listen to what each business owner had to say. It went as well as I had hoped, but with a few surprises. First, business owners in the Platzl are a very friendly, very optimistic bunch. They all knew I was running for council and had every opportunity to complain to me - but they didn't. Instead what I received was a very warm welcome, a sincere smile, and a bit of history about their business and a very open, frank discussion on how to improve things. The other surprise that I was faced with was time - I spent an hour in some businesses and, (at the very least 20 minutes) in others. My two hour Platzl adventure turned out to be an entire day, and I still only managed to visit about a third of the businesses!
 The business owners level of optimism about business life in the Platzl was very refreshing! Still, the ensuing discussions brought to light several things:

1. Bavarian theme is not all that bad. Some people are really pumped about keeping the Bavarian storefronts and keeping this theme going ( some did qualify this by saying that most storefronts are way overdo for a major redo). Others... not so much, they would rather see a more natural storefront (mountain theme, if you will). I did not come across anyone against the Cuckoo clock, they all love the cuckoo clock and really appreciate the volunteer efforts. Almost everyone spoke about the cuckoo clock, without me asking about it.

2. Some business people told me about the affection for our mascot (?) Happy Hans. They love the little guy. I was told about folks actually getting a Happy Hans tattoo!

3. One business owner told me a story about finding a natural paint color (based on images of lichen that he took) scheme for his business, only to be hounded by City Hall to do a "mountain of paperwork" for approval, something the owner simply could not put the time into and in the end City Hall brought the paperwork to his business to help with. It's great that City Hall did this, but I still wonder about the (why?) of paperwork in the first place.

4. It appears many business owners use the shoulder season in the fall , and mid-April to Mid-May to take holidays. They simply work with the slow season. Some owners mentioned that they are not experiencing a slow shoulder season this year, things were going ok for some. Then I walked past the very lonely looking building that used to be Bavarian Sports and Hardware. The windows are now all covered up.          

Every time I walk through the Platzl, I can't help but wonder what the ambiance of the place would be with higher blend of residential (condo) to commercial. It would be a beautiful place to live, with a world class garden right out your front door, and quick access to everything Kimberley has to offer. I think this would help solve what is (in my mind) the number one problem with the Platzl.... NO PEOPLE.     

The Platzl is a pedestrian mall... it needs people. Why not rezone some of the commercial space to high density residential (condo)?  Business owners are redoing their storefronts, great garden environment in the summer, easy access to everything else... and best of all - more people.          Darryl Oakley