Hello Community Associations,
As we are about to go into the amazingly sunny celebratory weekend I wanted to touch base and say hi. As you can see from the various communications coming out of Saanich there have been numerous essential changes as we adjust to the reality of COVID-19. The number one job of Saanich right now is to ensure we’re doing all we can to keep our residents and our staff as safe as possible while maintaining the core essential services you need from the municipality.
You’ve seen a lot of our messaging on that so I won’t repeat it here. As we go into this celebratory weekend I would like to ask your help to message out this weekend to ensure we observe physical distancing, stay safe, stay local, and look out for each other.
The Province has concluded it needs to close the provincial parks. Some of the issues they have faced are overcrowding at car parks and trails, insufficient number of staff available to monitor and educate, and thirdly, the need to encourage people not to travel out of region, out of neighbourhoods, because of health and safety risks.
In Saanich we are keeping our parks open because of the benefits they bring to mental and physical health. We have 170 parks and 100’s of kilometers of trails and beaches. We hope very much to maintain access to all of these. Our ability to do that rests on us. How Saanich residents use the “behavioural vaccines” of social distancing and healthy behaviours to stay well.
Current information, including news releases and updates, service disruptions, and financial and community resources can be found on our website here: https://www.saanich.ca/EN/main/news-events/covid-19-information.html.
On behalf of all our Council and our Staff, have a wonderful, sunny, healthy weekend.
Fred
Fred Haynes, Mayor
