‘Not good governance’: Metchosin mayor questions process amid fire hall talk

Volunteer technical team’s first progress report prompted a tense exchange over governance

‘Not good governance’: Metchosin mayor questions process amid fire hall talk Published 8:45 am Wednesday, July 15, 2026 Metchosin’s volunteer fire hall technical team presented their first report to council on Monday (July 13), sparking a passionate debate over governance. The four-page report outlined work completed over the last month after council directed the technical team to engage with the CAO in May. The volunteer group consists of Klaus Kreye, Gary Smirfitt and Morgan Yates, alongside firefighter Capt. Charlie River.

According to the report, the group has toured district-owned facilities, reviewed historical studies, examined six mutual aid agreements and begun assessing both the administrative building and apparatus bay. The report also outlines a proposed plan of action that includes reviewing space allocation, workflow, future fleet requirements and benchmarking against other fire halls as the technical review continues. No decisions were made Monday, and no motion accompanied the presentation.

While councillors Shelly Donaldson, Steve Gray and Jay Shukin voted to receive the report, Mayor Marie-Térèse Little voted against receiving it. Little questioned why the volunteer technical team was revisiting issues she said had already been addressed through a previous feasibility study. “With this report, I have some concerns.

For instance, it seems to me that they’re re-examining space application, the apparatus bays, the fleet requirements and the workflow,” Little said. “This was already done in the feasibility study provided by DJa Architects.” She also questioned the group’s role and the governance surrounding its work.

“Why are we asking a group of volunteers to give direction, not to our council, but to our CAO?” Little said. “That brings issues to me of good governance.

These meetings are behind closed doors, where council is not viewing, and the public is not viewing what is being discussed. So, we are allowing a volunteer group to do things that we’re not allowed to do. We have to have the public watching us.

So, I don’t think this is good governance.” Technical team member Gary Smirfitt took issue with the mayor’s comments regarding the team’s qualifications. “Some of the comments you’ve made regarding the people who form this team, I find personally disparaging,” Smirfitt said.

“I don’t see any sense in me continuing to speak, because I just started trying to explain, and you (Mayor Little) jumped in, and I feel if I continue, I’m going to lose it.” He added that the volunteers would step aside if council no longer saw value in their work. “Our work is based on what we submitted to you, to this council, we presented our first report.

If you and this council, and the CAO feel that we’re wasting our time, then tell us, and we’ll leave dodge, and let you continue on at the same rate that’s gone on.” Little later clarified she was not criticizing the volunteers’ project management experience, but reiterated her concerns about the role of the technical team and what she described as the displacement of the municipality’s fire hall steering committee, an eight-member committee established to advise council as the project moves through the concept, needs, design and building stages. “I don’t think this is good governance,” Little said.

“I appreciate the work of the volunteers and their sentiment. I wasn’t speaking disparagingly about their project management. All I am saying is they have displaced the fire hall steering committee, which was good governance.

That was a committee that we all vetted, which is waiting and standing by, waiting to help.” “It’s that transparency piece. The public hasn’t been able to weigh in and see what they’re talking about, we haven’t been able to see what they’re talking about.”

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