The Amalgamation Project

After several months of having a group of 40 or so, with another 80-100 supporters, attend at least one of the series of meetings to figure out how to start the debate and dialog about amalgamation in this region we are now ready to publicly move forward.    Last night we had the first meeting of the steering committee of The Amalgamation Project.

Our goal is at first to begin the discussion about amalgamation, but our eventual goal is to have local governments seek the support of the public to investigate amalgamating in some form.   We would be happy to see amalgamation a question on the ballot this fall in all the municipalities to find out if people are generally in favour or opposed.   We are also realistic and do not expect the councils to offer this as a vote in November.

We will be holding a public forum on Thursday May 26th.   We do not have the location yet, but hopefully will have that in place shortly.   We have a list of 6-10 possible locations we think would work.   At this forum we will have six to eight speakers talk for five to ten minutes about some aspect of governance and our region.   I will be talking about planning and zoning problems that arise from having 13 municipal governments.   We will then have an hour for people to raise issues, ask questions and general debate issues that relate to us having all these local governments.

Our goal is going to be having regular public forums on all manner of issues that relate to amalgamation.

We are looking at having a website up which will collate information about governance in this region.  It will also eventually have a forum for people to debate.

We have decided on a $10 lifetime membership fee for anyone wishing to become a member.   If you want to join, you can mail a cheque or cash to:

The Amalgamation Project
3103 Harriet Road
Victoria BC
V9A 1T7

We will have other ways for you to join as well in the near future.

On April 19th we will be holding a meeting of people interested in working on the amalgamation issue.  We will be creating special interest groups for topics such as Policing, Transportation, Planning and more.

More details on all this as they are organized.

For more information please feel free to contact:
Bernard von Schulmann - Steering Committee communications - 250-744-0866
Rod Phillips - Steering Committee chair - 250-880-0071