Joanne Sales thinks she and her crew can sweep away the broom from Qualicum Beach. All they need, they say, is council’s support and a strong turnout.
Sales, along with Broombusters colleague Alannah Howard, made the vow at Monday night’s council meeting. She detailed how the model of fighting the weed in Qualicum Beach is proving an inspiration to other broom-beleaguered communities.
“Qualicum Beach was the first town to support Broombusters and I want to thank council for their support since 2006, especially the last two years,” she said. “Other municipalities are following your example. We refer to Qualicum Beach as a model town, because of the work the town has done to eradicate this invasive plant.”
She cited Parksville, Courtenay and Nanaimo have also joined the fight, with the City of Nanaimo pledging a $5,000 budget to hire broom teams for the month of May.
This, she said, would be a good next step for Qualicum Beach, urging council to consider dedicating two staff for five days during the peak broom-cutting season, usually between May 8 and 22.
“Volunteers do a lot of good work, but a paid team can do things volunteers cannot,” she said. “As well, broom teams inspire volunteers and demonstrate city commitment to address the problem.”
She said the paid broom team would go after the plant in areas that are beyond volunteers’ ability to address, because of volume, density, difficulty in parking, invisibility or terrain.
Sales said BroomBusters has managed to take out roughly 75 per cent of the broom in Qualicum Beach to date, and she pledged the town can be broom-free in a few years. She cautioned however, that ‘broom-free’ is a relative term.
“We know for many years we’ll be removing seedlings of broom, but our goal, with the town, working together we can stop the broom from going to seed.”
Mayor Teunis Westbroek thanked Sales and directed staff to consider the request.