Powell River Regional District’s chief administrative officer (CAO) feels like he has returned to his local government roots with his new position in the community.
Before Mac Fraser started his job on April 1, he had been the director of planning with Islands Trust for four years. “The surprising point in my 15 years in local government is that I went to be a director of planning,” he said. “It feels a bit more like back to my core skills now.”
Fraser’s first career was as a military engineer. “I did that for 20 years and ended up as the base engineer in Comox. That job is roughly analogous to municipal engineer and town planner, in a non-democratic situation. You work for the base commander.”
When he left the military, he became manager of operations for the Village of Cumberland and eventually the CAO. During his 10 years with Cumberland, he built up the planning department “from nothing to pretty reasonable,” Fraser said. He was attracted to the Islands Trust and was eventually recruited to go there to help it sort out a number of local government managerial issues, he added. “It was an organization that was in transition, that was overwhelmed by workload. We did some restructuring and some additions. Yes, I was responsible for planning, but there were a lot of people in that organization who were better at development applications than I ever got to be.”
Islands Trust mandate is predominantly planning, however, and Fraser had the responsibility for land use planning on the Gulf Islands between the Mainland and Vancouver Island, roughly south of Texada.”
The area includes Lasqueti Island, Fraser pointed out, “which is kind of fun, because Lasqueti is also in the Powell River Regional District.”
The Islands Trust is like an amalgamated planning department from the jurisdiction of six regional districts, Fraser explained. “We did the planning, but only planning and therefore we had to do a lot of work in cooperation with the other regional districts. I’ve had the pleasure in the last four years to do a lot of work with the Salish Sea-Strait of Georgia regional districts.”
While he didn’t work directly with the Powell River Regional District, he knew the community because he has a niece who lives here. He and his wife, Doreen, a geriatric nurse, visited frequently and in fact had decided to purchase recreational property when the CAO position became available. “We were coming to Powell River before I knew that I was coming for a job,” Fraser said. “I was quite happy when the board selected me.”
Fraser is also looking forward to becoming involved in the community. While he worked for Islands Trust, he commuted. “I’ve lost being a community member for the last number of years,” he said. “When I lived in Cumberland, I was very, very involved, so I’m really excited about that. That’s why I work in smaller locations, because of the sense of community.”
The regional district has also filled the position of manager of community services. Sean McGinn is responsible for parks, campgrounds, Myrtle Pond water system, Lund sewer system, emergency planning and he supports the volunteer fire departments. “Community services is an effort to not only provide the service, but the manager is really responsible also to balance all the competing priorities for tax expenditures,” Fraser said. “That’s really important to us in this regional district because we’re very careful with taxpayers’ money.”
