The public portion of Sooke District Council’s Committee of the Whole was called to order and adjourned within 30 minutes at the meeting of February 21.Leading off the agenda was a small delegation representing a group from Journey Middle School that had travelled to Japan during last year’s spring break. The group included teacher Ms. Martha Gerow, Austin and Brandon Willson, and Jesse Malloy who brought the committee up to speed with a video presentation compiled during the trip.District council had apparently responded to a request for a monetary donation toward the cost of the trip, and was thanked by the Monday night delegation.Mayor Janet Evans shared some details of a similar trip she’d been part of as a chaperone in 2006. Evans had glowing reports of the friendly hospitality she’d received from her Japanese hosts on that occasion.The committee heard that a reciprocal visit to Sooke by Japanese students will take place in the coming months.From there it was on to a series of year-end reports which were contained in the agenda package.The reports are a heads up to council and the public and will also be contained in the district’s upcoming annual report.Year end reports in the C.O.W. agenda (seven of eight of which may be reviewed in their entirety in the “What’s New?” section of the district’s website) dealt with:• Approving officer• Engineering• Finance• Fire Rescue• Planning/Building/Geographic One other report, from Corporate Services was represented in the agenda package, selected highlights from which follow:• Council adopted 43 bylaws including 18 zoning bylaw amendments and five phased development agreement authorization bylaws.• The Official Community Plan, 2010 was adopted on May 17, 2010 as a result of the hard work and dedication of the related review committee, council and staff.• The 2010-2014 Financial Plan Bylaw, Land Reserve Fund Bylaw and Delegation Bylaw were also presented to and adopted by council.
