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December 7, 1999 – a day that will live in … well, not infamy (it's to be sincerely hoped) as was the case 58 years earlier, but certainly in local memories as the official dawn of the District of Sooke. As we approach the District’s 25th anniversary on Saturday, I'm sharing related links along with material from a few files I have here and via the Times Colonist archive available through VIRL Sooke. This work-in-progress entry is very much incomplete and joins other rainy day blog items that require fuller research -- ideally by some keen student with access to Sooke newspaper archives and a recording device to capture living memories. The District intends to mark the occasion with one or more anniversary events as the next 12 months unfold.
Incorporation
* June 12, 1999 referendum:
- Question: "Are you in favour of the incorporation of Sooke as a municipality?"
- 1,439 in favour vs. 937 against
- 40% of eligible Sooke voters participated.
* Incorporation documentation, dated Sept. 2, 1999 and signed by the Lieutenant Governor of BC + detailed outline of the District's then-boundaries.
* Press release from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Sept. 17, 1999 ... “Sooke will be officially incorporated as the District of Sooke on Dec. 7, 1999, Malahat-Juan de Fuca MLA Rick Kasper announced today on behalf of Jim Doyle, minister of municipal affairs. Sooke residents will elect their first municipal council on Nov. 20. The council will include a mayor and six councillors. ‘Incorporation will bring a number of advantages to the area including easier access to services, greater local governance and more control over taxes,’ said Kasper. ‘It gives the people of Sooke more decision-making authority.’ Incorporation of the district follows a June referendum in which a majority of residents voted yes to incorporation. ‘This move will mean good things for the community. A municipality with a locally elected council will be a major stimulus for managing growth and creating local jobs," Kasper added.’”
* Minutes of District of Sooke inaugural meeting, held in the EMCS Community Theatre on Dec. 7, 1999.
<cip> “The Minister of Municipal Affairs Jim Doyle thanked Justice of the Peace, Her Worship Kerry Fedosenko, and then presented to Mayor Macgregor the official Letters Patent incorporating the District of Sooke, along with a cheque in the amount of $600,000 for the first installment of the special incorporation grant, a cheque in the amount of $9,205 representing the 1999 portion of the Small Communities Protection Grant and a gift from the Province of British Columbia of a commemorative gavel, water pitcher and water goblets.” Sworn into office that night were Mayor Ed Macgregor and Councillors Lorna Barry, Ron Dumont, Janet Evans, John Farmer, Marcus Farmer and Jeff Stewart.
* CRD summary of all South Island municipal incorporation dates
* How Did We Get To 13 Municipalities (Bernard von Schulmann writing for Amalgamation Yes). <clip> “Sooke was the final incorporation in the region. Sooke is a viable municipality and could have been incorporated earlier, but given the number of roads in Sooke, the cost of incorporation was potentially more expensive.”
* District of Sooke flag and coat of arms – letters patent granted in December, 2003. “The axes and salmon refer to the historical importance that the industries of forestry and fishing have had in Sooke. Red and gold are the colours of Spain and hence allude to the first European contact. The gold can also refer to the wealth derived from Sooke's traditional industries, as well as to the Leech River gold rush. The diagonal division of the shield makes an allusion to the flag of Scotland and thus to Captain Grant, the first European settler.”
Prelude
* Incorporation referendum #1 - June 1976 (no official result i can find, but voting was roughly five to one against according to Eric Butler when quoted by the TC years later). The incorporation study group organized by the Sooke Chamber of Commerce was led by Butler and included Len Jones (Sooke Community Association), Jean Robinson (Kemp Lake Waterworks District), John Farmer (Lions Club), James Dunn (Sooke Athletic Association), and, representing the Chamber, architect John Tregear and future CRD regional director Ray Nestman. Then CRD director Charlie Perkins told the Times Colonist (May 29, 1976) incorporation is "an interesting idea but not essential ... He believes Sooke is managing its own affairs quite efficiently now and there is no immediate need for municipal status." Butler is quoted as saying that "Central Saanich is a good model for incorporation given similarities in population growth, size and rural atmosphere ... one reason Sooke should become a municipality is the shift in development from the Saanich Peninsula to the western part of the Capital district (that) will eventually reach Sooke."
* Incorporation referendum #2 - Nov. 14, 1991 (1,285 in favour vs. 1,392 against; 50% turnout of the 5,400 eligible voters).
I have a small collection of incorporation study documents gifted to me by a Sooke resident who was involved in the 1990s incorporation discussions. This file includes:
* Sooke Incorporation Study dated March 20, 1991, 71 pages in a salmon-pink cover. A June 1991 addendum was also published. It indicated that, with incorporation, home assessment values would rise “an average 45-50%” and that tax rates would decline. Upsides of incorporation stated in these documents:
- Elected representatives would expand from one CRD director (among 19 representing the South Island at the time) to “four or six aldermen/councillors and a mayor … (this would provide) increased political control over local issues through a locally elected council.”
- Community Planning with stronger local input. (The 1986 Sooke Electoral Area OCP was in force at the time.) Council would have “the ability to establish an Advisory Planning Commission to advise on community planning issues.”
- Service delivery as a municipality within the CRD “will change, however it need not change a great deal because a municipality is obliged to provide only a small number of core services: general government, police and road maintenance and construction.”
- Taxation: “It is impossible to estimate the impact of incorporation on tax levels without making some assumptions about the decisions the new Council would make … (but) the most sensible approach is to assume as little change in the status quo as possible.”
- Province of BC provides three types of financial assistance to a newly incorporating municipality: policing costs; road maintenance and rehabilitation costs; and general government costs.
- Multiple “building block” communities from Port Renfrew to East Sooke were considered for inclusion in the incorporated area. The failed 1991 referendum set the boundaries around the current District along with Otter Point, Shirley and East Sooke.
- A delegation of Saseenos residents requested (in 1991) that Saseenos be a separate municipality that would have liberty to keep taxes low, retain rural character and make its own decisions. The study group rejected this request, saying the larger new Sooke municipality would meet these needs. (Saseenos resident Ellen Lewers subsequently resigned from the study group, saying “nowhere in the report do I see the effect of incorporation on agricultural land with regard to taxation or what will seriously happen to the rural atmosphere in areas of Saseenos … in my opinion, the study has been nothing more than a procedural necessity to justify referendum.”)
* The Feb. 27, 1991 Sooke Standard queries three former CRD regional directors on the subject. Ron Dumont states that Sooke would have better control over its destiny. "A council could take on fire protection, garbage pickup, roads, lights and the physical plan for the community." It's a big step, he adds: "It's like a kid leaving home. It's scary and what you're leaving is secure. But your parents are either going to give you the boot or you'll get aggressive and leave on your own." Don Rittaler told the reporter that "the destiny of Sooke should be run by Sooke" rather than exclusively in CRD hands. He felt the boundary could be expanded to Jordan River. Another former regional director, Howard Elder, was a "staunch opponent of Sooke incorporating," the article states, given what he perceived to be flaws and misinformation in the incorporation report's tax projections.
* Former CRD Director Charlie Perkins is quoted in The Sooke Standard (no date on clipping, likely early 1991): “At one time (Sooke) was an old-fashioned community and old fashioned answers were suitable. But now we’ve become a megalopolis of Victoria and we have a different set of problems. Its better to have our own control. Whether that is real control or not is another question.” Article indicates that the CRD at this time dedicated a half-time employee to all Sooke planning work. Perkins is uncertain about fate of future referendums due to mistrust in the process: “It’s generated largely by some people who mistrust others with regulating the community. Others feel the community can provide them with a lot of money if handled properly … there’s a fundamental chasm between the ‘Go Slowers’ and the ‘Get Richers’ who will never see eye to eye.”
* Agendas for 1993 public meetings of the Sooke Incorporation/Restructuring Committee. Its members were John Farmer (chair), Margie Wickheim, Mel Dobres, Diane Bernard, Bill Wilson (Information Officer), Dwight Johnston (Treasurer), Peter Langdon, Len Jones, Bob Sykes, Neil Carpenter, Jane Thompson, Hubert Rhodes, Kathy Chaisson, Heather Polichek, Don Reid, Vern Edwards, Bill Bell and John Ferguson. Chief Jack Planes was approached to be the T'Sou-ke representative at committee meetings. Reference is made to the failed 1991 referendum focused on a larger incorporation area. The new strategy in 1993 proposed a smaller parcel that included the Sooke Fire Protect District, forest lands and the Butler property to the west.
* Imagine Sooke: A Sustainable Community - June 23, 1993 report to the CRD from the Sooke Electoral Area Economic Development Commission suggesting that a public workshop be held “to find out if there is a general concern about the present manner of growth management in Sooke … and whether there is an interest in exploring a better way to manage this growth.” Workshop took place on Sept. 25 that year.
* One outcome of Imagine Sooke was an unsigned position paper titled A Sooke Charrette as the Nexus to Incorporation (Sept. 28, 1993). It recommends a public engagement session so that “the incorporation debate can move from financial abstractions to focus directly on the resultant changes in the physical environment and how those changes affect people personally.” Boundaries, road standards and the public waterfront were cited as discussion areas.
- “Managing Community Economic Development and Growth in the Sooke Electoral Area: A Report to the Capital Regional District” – Earl J. Smith, Sept. 9, 1994
* A new Sooke Incorporation Study Committee was formed in 1996 with a group that included John Stephens and Les Barclay. It began with the premise that incorporation should not include areas that would later become the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area.
* The Road to Sooke’s Incorporation – Elida Peers (Sooke News Mirror, May 7, 2020)
- first incorporation study in 1963
Deeper background
- First Nations peoples have lived on Vancouver Island for 13,800 years according to the archeological record
"[Sooke Inlet] was named in 1846 after the region's First Nation inhabitants by Captain Henry Kellet of HMS Herald, who made an early survey of the south end of Vancouver Island. The name of the Sooke people was initially pronounced soak and was spelled Soke or Soake by the area's pioneers; many other spellings have also been recorded, including Sâ'ok, Sock, Sok, and Tsohke. The preferred form today is T'Sou-ke. The word supposedly derives from the name of a stickleback fish that was found at the mouth of the Sooke River. Spanish naval officer Manuel Quimper, who was the first European to explore the area, in 1790, called the inlet Puerto de Revillagigedo, after Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguyo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo and viceroy of New Spain, 1789-94." (p. 556) - Scott, Andrew, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names, Harbour Publishing, 2009.
Incorporation
* June 12, 1999 referendum:
- Question: "Are you in favour of the incorporation of Sooke as a municipality?"
- 1,439 in favour vs. 937 against
- 40% of eligible Sooke voters participated.
* Incorporation documentation, dated Sept. 2, 1999 and signed by the Lieutenant Governor of BC + detailed outline of the District's then-boundaries.
* Press release from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Sept. 17, 1999 ... “Sooke will be officially incorporated as the District of Sooke on Dec. 7, 1999, Malahat-Juan de Fuca MLA Rick Kasper announced today on behalf of Jim Doyle, minister of municipal affairs. Sooke residents will elect their first municipal council on Nov. 20. The council will include a mayor and six councillors. ‘Incorporation will bring a number of advantages to the area including easier access to services, greater local governance and more control over taxes,’ said Kasper. ‘It gives the people of Sooke more decision-making authority.’ Incorporation of the district follows a June referendum in which a majority of residents voted yes to incorporation. ‘This move will mean good things for the community. A municipality with a locally elected council will be a major stimulus for managing growth and creating local jobs," Kasper added.’”
* Minutes of District of Sooke inaugural meeting, held in the EMCS Community Theatre on Dec. 7, 1999.
<cip> “The Minister of Municipal Affairs Jim Doyle thanked Justice of the Peace, Her Worship Kerry Fedosenko, and then presented to Mayor Macgregor the official Letters Patent incorporating the District of Sooke, along with a cheque in the amount of $600,000 for the first installment of the special incorporation grant, a cheque in the amount of $9,205 representing the 1999 portion of the Small Communities Protection Grant and a gift from the Province of British Columbia of a commemorative gavel, water pitcher and water goblets.” Sworn into office that night were Mayor Ed Macgregor and Councillors Lorna Barry, Ron Dumont, Janet Evans, John Farmer, Marcus Farmer and Jeff Stewart.
* CRD summary of all South Island municipal incorporation dates
* How Did We Get To 13 Municipalities (Bernard von Schulmann writing for Amalgamation Yes). <clip> “Sooke was the final incorporation in the region. Sooke is a viable municipality and could have been incorporated earlier, but given the number of roads in Sooke, the cost of incorporation was potentially more expensive.”
* District of Sooke flag and coat of arms – letters patent granted in December, 2003. “The axes and salmon refer to the historical importance that the industries of forestry and fishing have had in Sooke. Red and gold are the colours of Spain and hence allude to the first European contact. The gold can also refer to the wealth derived from Sooke's traditional industries, as well as to the Leech River gold rush. The diagonal division of the shield makes an allusion to the flag of Scotland and thus to Captain Grant, the first European settler.”
Prelude
* Incorporation referendum #1 - June 1976 (no official result i can find, but voting was roughly five to one against according to Eric Butler when quoted by the TC years later). The incorporation study group organized by the Sooke Chamber of Commerce was led by Butler and included Len Jones (Sooke Community Association), Jean Robinson (Kemp Lake Waterworks District), John Farmer (Lions Club), James Dunn (Sooke Athletic Association), and, representing the Chamber, architect John Tregear and future CRD regional director Ray Nestman. Then CRD director Charlie Perkins told the Times Colonist (May 29, 1976) incorporation is "an interesting idea but not essential ... He believes Sooke is managing its own affairs quite efficiently now and there is no immediate need for municipal status." Butler is quoted as saying that "Central Saanich is a good model for incorporation given similarities in population growth, size and rural atmosphere ... one reason Sooke should become a municipality is the shift in development from the Saanich Peninsula to the western part of the Capital district (that) will eventually reach Sooke."
* Incorporation referendum #2 - Nov. 14, 1991 (1,285 in favour vs. 1,392 against; 50% turnout of the 5,400 eligible voters).
I have a small collection of incorporation study documents gifted to me by a Sooke resident who was involved in the 1990s incorporation discussions. This file includes:
* Sooke Incorporation Study dated March 20, 1991, 71 pages in a salmon-pink cover. A June 1991 addendum was also published. It indicated that, with incorporation, home assessment values would rise “an average 45-50%” and that tax rates would decline. Upsides of incorporation stated in these documents:
- Elected representatives would expand from one CRD director (among 19 representing the South Island at the time) to “four or six aldermen/councillors and a mayor … (this would provide) increased political control over local issues through a locally elected council.”
- Community Planning with stronger local input. (The 1986 Sooke Electoral Area OCP was in force at the time.) Council would have “the ability to establish an Advisory Planning Commission to advise on community planning issues.”
- Service delivery as a municipality within the CRD “will change, however it need not change a great deal because a municipality is obliged to provide only a small number of core services: general government, police and road maintenance and construction.”
- Taxation: “It is impossible to estimate the impact of incorporation on tax levels without making some assumptions about the decisions the new Council would make … (but) the most sensible approach is to assume as little change in the status quo as possible.”
- Province of BC provides three types of financial assistance to a newly incorporating municipality: policing costs; road maintenance and rehabilitation costs; and general government costs.
- Multiple “building block” communities from Port Renfrew to East Sooke were considered for inclusion in the incorporated area. The failed 1991 referendum set the boundaries around the current District along with Otter Point, Shirley and East Sooke.
- A delegation of Saseenos residents requested (in 1991) that Saseenos be a separate municipality that would have liberty to keep taxes low, retain rural character and make its own decisions. The study group rejected this request, saying the larger new Sooke municipality would meet these needs. (Saseenos resident Ellen Lewers subsequently resigned from the study group, saying “nowhere in the report do I see the effect of incorporation on agricultural land with regard to taxation or what will seriously happen to the rural atmosphere in areas of Saseenos … in my opinion, the study has been nothing more than a procedural necessity to justify referendum.”)
* The Feb. 27, 1991 Sooke Standard queries three former CRD regional directors on the subject. Ron Dumont states that Sooke would have better control over its destiny. "A council could take on fire protection, garbage pickup, roads, lights and the physical plan for the community." It's a big step, he adds: "It's like a kid leaving home. It's scary and what you're leaving is secure. But your parents are either going to give you the boot or you'll get aggressive and leave on your own." Don Rittaler told the reporter that "the destiny of Sooke should be run by Sooke" rather than exclusively in CRD hands. He felt the boundary could be expanded to Jordan River. Another former regional director, Howard Elder, was a "staunch opponent of Sooke incorporating," the article states, given what he perceived to be flaws and misinformation in the incorporation report's tax projections.
* Former CRD Director Charlie Perkins is quoted in The Sooke Standard (no date on clipping, likely early 1991): “At one time (Sooke) was an old-fashioned community and old fashioned answers were suitable. But now we’ve become a megalopolis of Victoria and we have a different set of problems. Its better to have our own control. Whether that is real control or not is another question.” Article indicates that the CRD at this time dedicated a half-time employee to all Sooke planning work. Perkins is uncertain about fate of future referendums due to mistrust in the process: “It’s generated largely by some people who mistrust others with regulating the community. Others feel the community can provide them with a lot of money if handled properly … there’s a fundamental chasm between the ‘Go Slowers’ and the ‘Get Richers’ who will never see eye to eye.”
* Agendas for 1993 public meetings of the Sooke Incorporation/Restructuring Committee. Its members were John Farmer (chair), Margie Wickheim, Mel Dobres, Diane Bernard, Bill Wilson (Information Officer), Dwight Johnston (Treasurer), Peter Langdon, Len Jones, Bob Sykes, Neil Carpenter, Jane Thompson, Hubert Rhodes, Kathy Chaisson, Heather Polichek, Don Reid, Vern Edwards, Bill Bell and John Ferguson. Chief Jack Planes was approached to be the T'Sou-ke representative at committee meetings. Reference is made to the failed 1991 referendum focused on a larger incorporation area. The new strategy in 1993 proposed a smaller parcel that included the Sooke Fire Protect District, forest lands and the Butler property to the west.
* Imagine Sooke: A Sustainable Community - June 23, 1993 report to the CRD from the Sooke Electoral Area Economic Development Commission suggesting that a public workshop be held “to find out if there is a general concern about the present manner of growth management in Sooke … and whether there is an interest in exploring a better way to manage this growth.” Workshop took place on Sept. 25 that year.
* One outcome of Imagine Sooke was an unsigned position paper titled A Sooke Charrette as the Nexus to Incorporation (Sept. 28, 1993). It recommends a public engagement session so that “the incorporation debate can move from financial abstractions to focus directly on the resultant changes in the physical environment and how those changes affect people personally.” Boundaries, road standards and the public waterfront were cited as discussion areas.
- “Managing Community Economic Development and Growth in the Sooke Electoral Area: A Report to the Capital Regional District” – Earl J. Smith, Sept. 9, 1994
* A new Sooke Incorporation Study Committee was formed in 1996 with a group that included John Stephens and Les Barclay. It began with the premise that incorporation should not include areas that would later become the Juan de Fuca Electoral Area.
* The Road to Sooke’s Incorporation – Elida Peers (Sooke News Mirror, May 7, 2020)
- first incorporation study in 1963
Deeper background
- First Nations peoples have lived on Vancouver Island for 13,800 years according to the archeological record
"[Sooke Inlet] was named in 1846 after the region's First Nation inhabitants by Captain Henry Kellet of HMS Herald, who made an early survey of the south end of Vancouver Island. The name of the Sooke people was initially pronounced soak and was spelled Soke or Soake by the area's pioneers; many other spellings have also been recorded, including Sâ'ok, Sock, Sok, and Tsohke. The preferred form today is T'Sou-ke. The word supposedly derives from the name of a stickleback fish that was found at the mouth of the Sooke River. Spanish naval officer Manuel Quimper, who was the first European to explore the area, in 1790, called the inlet Puerto de Revillagigedo, after Juan Vicente de Güemes Padilla Horcasitas y Aguyo, 2nd Count of Revillagigedo and viceroy of New Spain, 1789-94." (p. 556) - Scott, Andrew, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names, Harbour Publishing, 2009.
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