Dear Editor,
When I read The Bulletin’s latest broadside from Nerys Poole I was reminded of how and why Cape Roger Curtis sank to such a sad outcome. Fifty-nine ten acre lots for multi-millionaires – what amenities do you think prospective purchasers might want for such a waterfront playground? What could possibly go wrong with that picture?
Oddly enough, Nerys actually seems proud of the outcome for the Cape that she, Murray, Doug and Bob achieved. In fact, at the end of her article she explains that things only went wrong after she and her like-minded councillors lost the 2011 election, and the current council started dealing with the docks.
She writes darkly of undue influence from developers, council meetings behind closed doors, contravention of the Community Charter, and a council that allowed developers to build whatever docks they wanted.
Nerys forgot to mention a few important facts.
The first is that in September 2011, just weeks before the election, the CRC owners had filed four dock applications with the province. The second is that at that time, there was insufficient municipal protection in place to prevent those docks from being built. If the incoming council had quickly increased the protection right away, and tried to apply it to those applications retroactively, it would have triggered a lawsuit by the owners that would have been prohibitively expensive for Bowen, and futile to defend.
So the time to foresee the need for better protection, and then quickly implement it before any dock applications were filed, was during the tenure of Nerys and her cohorts. They were in control of making CRC a waterfront playground for multi-millionaires, and they were also in control of amending the Official Community Plan – which typically outlines such things as protective principles.
And what about her accusation that our current council violated The Community Charter by holding closed meetings? Unfortunately for Nerys, the opposite is true. The Charter advises that there should be closed meetings when council is discussing potential legal problems, property or land use values, and matters related to personnel. So this means that council’s discussions about the legal implications that might flow from increased CRC protection, or about the financial implications that might flow from rezoning or sale of any community lands, should take place in closed meetings.
There have been calls for a more civil discourse before this election, and I’m hoping there won’t be any more articles like the one from Nerys Poole. We need facts and insights, not accusations and insinuations.
Isabel Otter
