To: Tom Johnstone, Director Charles Reif, President
Saturna Ratepayers & Residents Assoc. Saturna Community Club
From: Casey Larochelle, Tsawout Band manager
Date: August 10,2016
Subject: Community Meeting and Concerns
I refer to your letter of this date to our consultant Jonathan Secter listing your several concerns regarding
selected aspects of our IR7 Forest Management Project and requesting deferral of the impending jointly
hosted Community meeting to mid-September.
While acknowledging the absence of detail in the information provided to date, I note that the plans made
available to you thus far were preliminary in nature and were provided to initiate discussions as the
planning and assessment of the project progressed. Indeed it has been our intention to present the
levels of detail that you are seeking at the subject Community Meeting.
We are indeed preparing detailed plans with regard to road safety, fire risk management, and
reforestation, and a Species at Risk Analysis is on hand as an integral part of the environmental planning
of the project. As well, I note that the preliminary plans viewed and discussed at our sessions of July 26th
showed that the intended cutblocks were selected and configured to exclude any and all sensitive
habitats, species, resources and features present on the property.
As to the timing of the requested Community Meeting, the schedule of several of our key participants is
such that after August 22 and 23 we will be unable to meet on this until October. As the details of our
Project Plan evolves, we certainly will arrange to provide you with an appropriate level of detail on your 4
noted areas of concern well in advance of that time.
We look forward to a continued constructive cooperative dialogue with our Saturna neighbours
Original Signed by
Casey Larochelle,
Tsawout Band Manager
Cc’s: Karen Harry, Tsawout Councillor
Gord Atkinson,CFM
Jonathan Secter,SERC