Austin Luciow

Resolutions I have brought forward have been to protect the Rainbow Jordan old growth forest, as well as looking to create a refund program for food recovery operations, absorbing costs from food businesses to collect and sort items, and well as increased tipping fees for organic and recyclable removals. Working with the Neighbourhood kitchen to build food security in our community continues to reduce food waste and offer nutritious free meals to the vulnerable in our community. Bringing our food waste business with me when I moved from Calgary has evolved to preserving produce from First Light Farms for them to sell at the Farmers Market. Volunteering with the Local Food Initiative to support their fundraising dinner the Mid Summers Night Green, creating additional funds for their organization. Developing the Good Food Box program allowing people to purchase subsidized CSA style boxes at a reduced retail rate.

Climate change is an increasing risk to not just our community, and plans to mitigate its impact are essential. Water metering will allow the municipality to understand our water usage needs and better protect our water shed. Continued support of our Local Food Initiative is needed to continue to support food security in our community and offer our residents a place to learn and grow their own produce. Regarding land use and development, we need to ensure that landscaping options are clearly outlined and followed with a fire smart lens, as well as planting native species and avoiding invasive ones. The preservation of our very limited farm land needs to be a priority as well as making sure that they have the ability to be sustainable long term and aren't lost to development. The municipality need to continue to support creating painted turtle breeding grounds and ensuring the interactions with humans and vehicles are reduced. Planning has been happening in regards to a wild fire plan and needs to be continually updated to know how to respond, who is responsible for what, and how the community is informed if we have to deal with an imminent threat to our community, or if we are needing to welcome others into our community fleeing a disaster in their own community.

Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation is an arms length corporation, but its board consists of the mayor, 2 councilors, the cities CAO, and 3 other members and brings into question if this still operates at arms length. Forestry is an industry that operates in our community and employs local residents. Changes in forestry practices don't need to come with job loss, but a better lens on forest management practices that regenerate our forests rather then looking to extensively process the easiest sections of land to access closest to our community. The tenure of RCFC is extensive and steps should be made to asses and protect areas within allowable foresting areas to protect biodiversity and old growth forests. Consultation should happen with the community and indigenous nations who have claim to this land to ensure that the actions undertaken by the corporation are reflective of their vision and goals in our surrounding area. A public open house should be held with the board, council, and city staff in attendance to discuss the intent of the corporation and make sure it reflects the community it says to represent. Long term planning need to be taken to decide on the direction and intent of the corporation and transitions to ways of forest management to preserve our natural beauty that drives our tourism and offers places to reconnect with nature for our residents.

Currently the support that the Indigenous Friendship Society receives is minimal and can definitely be increased. The city should maintain a city council representative to attend their board meeting, but the responsibility for reconciliation is on the municipality not on the society. Support for the Truth and Reconciliation walk should be robust, rather then what has happened in previous years with traffic barricades not delivered or needing to be assembled by the volunteers to facilitate a safe walk down into Centennial park. The Indigenous Liaison position that used to be held under the city has sat empty for the past two years and has not even been posted to look to fill it. This position need to return to the city, to re-establish a connection with the four nations who have claim to this land. Attendance by council and staff at events hosted by the IFSR would show that they are actively looking to create a dialogue to facilitate reconciliation, rather then passively waiting to be asked for help. RIVER, the IFSR's social enterprise should be helped in finding a more publicly visible space within our community to show our commitment to reconciliation, and well as funding to help with staffing to create sustainability and capacity within the organization to continue to grow and support the indigenous voices in out community.

The city should see food security as essential and continue to support this through more funding and collaboration. The Food Security Coordinator is a role held by the LFI and partially funded by the municipality and the CSRD. They currently have request to council to increase their funding when renewing the contract next year to better support the role. This job is guided by the Food Security Strategy adopted by council, consisting of over 100 action items involving numerous stake holders in our community. People accessing the Food Bank has only increased after the pandemic, and as the only easily accessible support in the community, the need will only continue to grow. Since their is no option between retail grocery prices and emergency food support, individuals dealing with affordability struggles in town are reaching out to use the food bank. Options to fund a community grocery store, offering the option for subsidized groceries should be explored, as well as funding to create stability and capacity within the food bank, as well as exploring social enterprise opportunities to create financial stability for this essential service within our community. Removing barriers for our farmers market for indoor space rental, as well as prioritizing access to the space. The Farmers Market Coupon program offers the vulnerable in our community the opportunity to access locally grown food, and support to develop a similar program for our winter market should be supported.

Our community has to work diligently to ensure we reduce the interactions with wild bears and properly secure all attractants. The cities curb side collection program for organic and waste need to ensure that the bins are bearproof and able to be left locked for collection when moved to the curb. Education to the community about how to properly secure their garbage before collection day is key to reducing bears in residential areas. Properly securing and managing fruit trees on private property is paramount to not offering food sources bears will continually seek out. The city has to create a plan to asses and properly manage bear attractant trees on public city owned lands to lead by example. There are currently trees that are unmanaged on public lands, located near high traffic public spaces, which creates a unnecessary safety risk to our resident, and should be addressed. Education to the tourism community should entail the extra steps that people coming into the community might not understand we have to take to reduce bear human interaction. Understanding how to respond when spotting a bear, respecting they are wild animals, and shouldn't be approached or fed is paramount to keeping bears safe in our community.

Tourism is an essential part of our economy but needs to be managed properly to ensure long term success and preservation of our natural assets we as residents hold in high regards. Tourists need to be responsible for their actions in our community and surrounding areas, making sure they are leaving where they have been is a better state for the people coming behind them. Educating tourists about their impact on our community in regards to affordability and critical infrastructure costs which gets burdened to our tax base, while strain by the influx of our tourism population through the seasons. Efforts should be put into expanding the eligibility of MRDT and RMI funds currently collected and distributed by the municipality, to better support these infrastructure costs instead of it being burdened to our residents.