AN ABSOLUTE, NO-QUESTION-ABOUT-IT BOONDOGGLE
OSOYOOS TIMES-August 13, 2008
What a mess the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) board of directors has gotten itself into now.
The Aug. 7 board meeting where the Willow Beach Resort development application was voted down” thanks in part to the vote of an alternate director filling in for an absent board member who is reportedly in favour of the development” was a boondoggle.
Board Chair Dan Ashton's actions can be described as reprehensible at best in his attempt to bludgeon the application through in his motion for a second vote after what appears to be coercive tactics against the alternate director who did not vote the way Ashton wanted him to.
The alternate director was present for the vote on Aug. 7 and, under RDOS policy, his vote counts, whether the rest of the board agrees with it or not.
If the validity of this alternate director's vote is being questioned, then every board vote where an alternate director filled in should also be questioned.
Whether one is in favour of the development proposal or what it means for the Northwest Sewer Project is immaterial.
This is a question about the process of government.
It would be chaos if leaders at the provincial or federal levels were allowed to ignore a democratic vote in the legislature or the House of Commons just because they didn't like the outcome or because someone who would have voted the way they wanted wasn't there.
If this is the kind of response our regional leaders have for the process of approving or denying development applications, then why even have votes and readings and public hearings?
And if passing the Willow Beach development application is so important, then why didn't someone make sure the people who are in favour of the proposal attend the meeting?
What's scarier is that the application could go to third reading again at the next board meeting without having to start the approval process all over again.
Neither Ashton nor RDOS staff could provide an answer to the question of whether the application would need to be altered for another shot at third reading and such ignorance, or the illusion of ignorance, suggests either incompetence within the RDOS or a backroom agenda to bend the rules to make sure this application gets through.
Should the application go up for third reading again, it should be altered since it did not pass the last vote.
And if it is not altered, then the last vote meant nothing.
And if that vote meant nothing, then the process means nothing.
And if the process means nothing, then the RDOS means nothing.
