The Salt Spring Island Fire Protection District’s 65th annual general meeting was held April 15, with a tender-truck-load of information from trustees and staff, and just enough drama to keep members of the public invested through the end of the public session, which came just after 9 p.m.
For those less captivated by the district’s audited financial statements — corporate administrator Rodney Dieleman noted a “modest” surplus and no extraordinary income or expenses — the highlight might have been Fire Chief Jamie Holmes’ annual report. The fire department boasted a 19 per cent female membership, Holmes said, well above the Canadian average of five per cent, with members ranging in age from 16 to “60-plus” with an average recruit age of 34.
Salt Spring Island Fire Rescue (SSIFR) took on six recruits in 2024, he said, making it a “relatively junior” department — in that over half of the membership has less than 10 years of service, a situation Holmes said was common in paid-on-call fire departments across North America.
“We have really senior people and really junior people,” said Holmes, “and we tend to lose the middle; we’ve been seeing that trend for the last five to 10 years, where either they get hired on as career [firefighters with SSIFR] or they end up moving off island. It’s just getting them over that 10-year itch, so to speak.”
Crediting the 24-hour staffing model at Ganges’ Fire Hall No. 1, Holmes said of the 700 calls in 2024, 13 involved structure fires — extinguished in time to prevent them from spreading to adjacent buildings or nearby wildland interface areas.
The Firefighters’ Association reported the year’s accomplishments, from community events to donations to various groups of over $4,000; the strategic planning committee introduced its road map for the coming five years, including replacing and reinvesting in the district’s two secondary fire halls; and the communications committee highlighted its new priority of reaching out to officials in senior government — looking for help to quickly secure firefighting equipment that can reach the top floor of the unexpectedly tall Drake Road supportive housing project, erected through provincial paramountcy this spring.
The town hall discussion launched a polite if agitated back-and-forth between some members of the public, district staff, fire board chair Rollie Cook and trustee David Courtney regarding the latter’s arguably extraordinary social media communications.
Citing lack of support from fellow trustees for his ideas, most recently regarding a new site for the northernmost secondary fire hall, Courtney has posted his plans on Facebook, drawing criticism from the other board members.
At the urging of a member of the public attending Monday night, Courtney agreed to present his current plan instead to the district’s strategic planning committee for more conventional consideration.
In other business during the AGM, the public attendees voted to keep trustee remuneration at its current level of $330 per month for trustees and $385 for the board chair, and everyone thanked exiting trustee John Wakefield for his service to the district.
During a special board meeting after the AGM, trustees heard a delegation from the North Salt Spring Waterworks District and voted to collectively encourage residents to vote “yes” in support of the water district’s Maxwell Lake water treatment plant borrowing referendum.