The regional district is looking at the Squamish Emergency Program Contribution Extended Service Establishment bylaw to see if they are able to allow taxes to go directly to Squamish Search and Rescue and possibly Squamish Marine Search and Rescue. If the current bylaw cannot allow this, the staff were directed to look into repealing the bylaw and developing a new one.
In his director's report, Tony Rainbow wrote that the bylaw, established in 1996, was developed before the SLRD had its own emergency coordinator. Before such services were available, taxes went to the District of Squamish to provide those emergency services.
Since then, Rainbow's report states, taxes continued to go to the DOS with the intent to support Squamish SAR, but "It wasn't clear that this was a direct flow through and, as such, the SLRD has not paid anything to DOS for the past [two] years."
Rainbow told The Chief the arrangement is amicable with the District of Squamish.
"What we're investigating is can we change the terms of that bylaw so that we can raise money as we used to and then pay it directly to Squamish Search and Rescue. What we want to go is give them a sense of stability, give them a source of income that they can rely on on a year-to-year basis," he said.
The board made a resolution on May 22 for staff to examine the bylaw's ability to support SAR teams in Squamish. If the bylaw does not need to be redacted, it won't need to go to the community for approval.
