Bashing broom, interviews and more

Invasive species in our parks is a big deal, but thankfully some local citizens are here to deal with it. This weekend Margaret Lidkea led her annual broom bash in Uplands Park with local Girl Guides and other concerned residents and today I went to go lend a hand. Saanich News covered her work a few weeks ago. I had forgotten just how difficult removing Scotch broom really is. There was pretty good attendance, at least 20 people that I saw, and some very large plants were taken out. Sadly, I learned that Margaret might not be running this next year, due to retiring, so hopefully somebody will step up to the plate and keep it going.

I also met with Jeff Bartlett and Darshan Stevens, journalism students at the Western Academy of Photography. They were conducting interviews with candidates as part of one of their asignments. They had both done some good research before interviewing me and I look forward to seeing their work, both now and in the future.

One of the interesting things they both said to me was that most candidates were hard to get hold of. Needless to say, I am baffled, as candidates are running largely on their name recognition, especially in a crowded field such as Victoria, with 35 candidates. Making yourself hard to contact is not going to help you there. Have other people run into the same issue?

In other news, while walking around today, a dog walker in Willows Park mentioned that I should talk more about seniors. With that in mind, I intend to post something this week on how legalizing secondary suites will help seniors (as well as students and the rest of the renting populace).