e-KNOW editorial

In a year or more from now (hopefully), when the good citizens of Elko proudly launch their volunteer fire department, they will be doing so with the blessing and good graces of the people of Cranbrook.

The city last Friday gifted a fire truck to Regional District of East Kootenay Electoral Area B/Elko to help it establish a volunteer fire department.

It is an extremely expensive proposition to outfit a new fire department, beginning with the often crippling costs of a fire truck, as new ones can run $250,000 and, in most cases, up.

And it isn’t some old piece of junk that is being gifted, in case you are wondering. It is a 20-year pumper truck that has only 57,000 km on its motor. It’s just getting broken in for crying out loud.

The goofy thing about this perfectly wonderful gesture by the city and residents of Cranbrook is that the truck they are gifting is being forced out of service in the city because of fire underwriter insurance requirements making the truck obsolete past the age of 20.

As Mayor Scott Manjak noted, the city thought about selling the 1990 truck “for maybe $20,000” but considerate second thought, on behalf of the mayor and his council, resulted in this move.

It is the first of two impressive instances of how the East Kootenay, as a region, appears to be coming closer together all the time.

Another example was the unveiling of the Fernie Miners’ Walk on Saturday, Oct. 8.

The project came to be on the sweat of efforts by many people, all organized by the seemingly tireless city councillor Mary Giuliano.

It is also a project that reminds people of the ties the municipalities of Elkford, Sparwood and Fernie share, to their rich heritage of coal mining and their continued embrace and benefit from that industry, which Kootenay-Columbia MP David Wilks noted is responsible for one per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.

That ain’t no chump change.

The 90 minute celebration at Fernie’s City Hall was an Elk Valley and an East Kootenay celebration as much as it was a Fernie shindig.

In our world’s rapidly changing economic structures, it is vital that all the communities in the East Kootenay continue to work together as one, rather than try to ‘go it on their own.’ Together, this region is a force. Individually, it can be viewed as chump change in the grand scheme of things.

So kudos to the City of Cranbrook for such a magnanimous gesture and a ‘well done’ tip of the chapeau to Mary Giuiliano and her small army of volunteers for establishing such a spot on salute to the past and to the future of the Elk Valley.

Ian Cobb/e-KNOW

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