Jeff Bateman
Website: http://www.jeff4sooke.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/batemansookebc/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jeff_C_Bateman
Are you associated with or running as part of a slate? If so, which one?
No.
Do you live in the municipality where you are running, and if so, for how long? If not, what is your connection to that community?
Resident of Sooke since May, 2003.
What is your occupation, and for how long?
Semi-retired staff, contract and freelance writer/editor with four decades experience in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Sooke.
Tell us about your previous elected and/or community experience.
I was elected in 2018 following a near-miss in 2014. As a councillor, I’ve served with the Capital Regional District (Alternate Director), the Vancouver Island Regional Library board and the Sooke Homelessness Coalition (co-chair). Pre-election, I regularly attended council meetings on behalf of Transition Sooke, for whom I served as president for four years. I was also a two-term president of the Edward Milne Community School Society; a co-founder of Zero Waste Sooke, the Sooke Multi-Belief Initiative and the Sooke Farmland Trust Society; and a public appointee to the District’s Climate Action Committee (chair) and Community Centre Advisory Committee.
Why are you running? What’s your motivation?
I’m seeking re-election to continue the work initiated by our current council led by Mayor Maja Tait. This includes adoption of the pending Official Community Plan and enactment of short-term priorities within Sooke’s new set of master plans and strategies — Community Economic Development, Climate Action, Transportation, Parks & Trails and Housing Needs. Major development is coming to Sooke’s town centre, and I’d like to work with council and staff to ensure it aligns with the community vision.
What are your top three issues?
1. Protection of rural character while also developing a “Sooke Smart Growth” waterfront town centre that places shops, services, amenities, office space and health care amidst moderately dense housing.
2. The critical need to recognize that Sooke has a finite population capacity given the reality of an increasingly congested two-lane (mostly) Highway 14.
3. Traffic volume and flow, which can be addressed to a degree through local job creation, land-use decisions that avoid sprawl, teleworking initiatives, implementation of BC Transit’s Local Area Plan, and construction of the Throup/Grant Road bypass route.
What’s your vision for your community in 25 years?
My vision echoes that of Sooke’s pending OCP, which in turn aligns with local plans dating back a half century at least. By 2048, we will be a fully resilient, emergency-prepared, climate-smart community. Our harbourside village centre will feature commercial/residential low-rises, shops, restaurants, cultural amenities, pocket parks and extended oceanfront walkway. The Troupe/Grant bypass route will be complete. The sewer system has expanded to Kaltasin Rd., guaranteeing renewed shellfish harvesting and sparking light-industrial enterprise at the point where the T’Sou-ke Nation meets Sooke. Our rural character outside the town centre remains beautifully intact.
What’s one “big idea” you have for your community?
Now that I’m fully conversant with the short, medium and long-term actions contained in our updated community plans, I can only point the reader to their executive summaries to see the wealth of possibilities available to Sooke given available staff and financial resources. This said, I remain interested in seeing how the Victoria/Saanich amalgamation process unfolds and whether it might one day be possible to look at regional service amalgamation here on the west shore.
