Tofino said goodbye to two outgoing councillors during the last meeting of their term last week.
Councillors Greg Blanchette and Ray Thorogood did not put their names forward for re-election and were thanked for their service by Mayor Josie Osborne at the start of Oct. 23’s regular meeting.
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“I want to say, ‘Thank you’ to both of you. I think you’ve done a tremendous job of representing the community and your particular constituency and the interests that you both brought forward when you campaigned and asked the community to put you into these seats,” she said.
“You’ve taken accountability for your own decisions and as well for decisions that council has made and you’ve both behaved very respectfully…Even when in the minority, and both of you have been in the minority on occasion, you have listened and participated incredibly respectfully and really represented council extremely well.”
Blanchette said his first and only term on council was an “eye-opening experience.”
“It was a very difficult decision to not run again,” he said. “I want to thank all my fellow council members who have been great to work with. Even when we disagreed, it was done respectfully. You brought good reasoning to the arguments at the table and it was almost a pleasure to lose to some of you on occasion.”
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He commended Osborne for setting the tone for council during the past term.
“I’ve followed council for years and I know how dysfunctional it has been in years past and you really turned that around and have kept it pointed in a [good] direction in what are increasingly difficult times,” he said.
Thorogood likened his two terms on council to how his children felt about his cooking.
“Years ago, when my kids were younger, I was doing the cooking on certain days. I’d feed it up and say ‘Well, how is it?’ They’d say, ‘It’s interesting.’ They didn’t say it was good. They didn’t say it was bad. They just said it was interesting,” Thorogood said as he thanked his colleagues. “Thank you. It has been interesting.”
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Coun. Cathy Thicke also did not run for re-election, but was absent from last week’s meeting.
She told the Westerly News she plans to continue pushing for several pursuits in Tofino including a new library at the corner of Third Street and Main Street and trail expansions.
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“I have really enjoyed working with the council and the people and the staff of the District of Tofino, but I just think it’s time to have a change. And, it’s time for some new faces too. I really want the younger people to be making those decisions that are ultimately going to affect them,” she said.
“There’s always more to do and you’re always in the middle of something, but at some point you just have to let go, let other people step in and hope for the best. I really hope the young people enjoy that experience as much as I have because you learn a lot…This community deserves the time and energy and decision making of young people and I’m so glad that they’re rising to that challenge. So, blessing’s on them.”
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Blanchette expressed similar sentiment to the Westerly about remaining involved in the community and said he looks forward to focusing on specific issues he has particular interest in, like climate change, salmon farms and environmental stewardship.
“One can have almost as much effect acting effectively as a citizen as one can as a councillor. So that’s where I’m moving my focus,” he said. “In theory I could take up any one of those issues from the council table. But, in practice, when you’re on council you’re reading 200-page agendas every couple of weeks and that eats up an enormous amount of time and it doesn’t lend itself towards concentrating on a few issues…It would just scatter me like crazy and it started to get frustrating over the last year or so.”
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He added that the decision not to run was difficult.
“I do feel a degree of responsibility to the renters in town, the ones who aren’t homeowners; the ones who are feeling the pinch. The ones like me basically,” he said. “The whole homeless issue is largely being looked at as a business staffing issue and that’s not how people living their lives think of a home…I don’t hear a lot of that type of talk around the table because the people that bring their influences there are business people and homeowners. They’ve got over those hurdles, but there’s a whole generation coming up that’s really behind the eight-ball in so many ways.”
