Just a few days before New Year’s Eve when traditionally people look forward to a new year, we are publishing an issue that reviews the past year.
As a ferry-dependent community, Powell River started the year adjusting to a change in terminals so upgrades could be completed. Continuing changes to schedule, routes and prices kept ferries among top stories. Learning that residents are being levied a surcharge so students can travel for free on the Langdale/Horseshoe Bay route caused phone lines to hum between Mayor Dave Formosa and BC Ferries.
Residents had to get used to changes to recycling as some items were no longer accepted and others were. Staff at recycling depots were inundated with questions from upset people as they tried to comply with new regulations.
Students were out of class early in June and returned late in the new school year as teachers withdrew their services. A six-year agreement was finally reached and school was back in.
After a couple years of acrimony regarding a location for a new library, both sides were given the opportunity to have their opinions recorded when a referendum was set up for November local government elections. In the end, the question was not about whether people wanted a library or not, or whether they wanted one at the foot of Alberni Street. It was about giving city council the authority to borrow money to create a new library in Crossroads Village Shopping Centre.
On January 1, 2014, our calendars were filled with blank pages and over the past 12 months they have been filled with events, both welcome and not. Now our calendars are very close to the end of 365 days that will never return. We can reflect on what happened over the past year, but the best use of our time will be to decide what we can do better and take steps to do so in the new year. Looking back and being stuck is not beneficial in any way. Looking back, deciding on improvements and then making them is the only beneficial path.
We are looking ahead to another calendar of blank pages, ready to receive notations for 2015, some expected and anticipated; some unexpected, both joyful and sad.
It is up to all of us, as individuals, families, communities, provinces and nations, to make the best of what we have each day. So when we again stand close to the end of our new calendar, we can say, “It was a very good year.”
