On April 9 I attended a meeting of the Electoral Area Planning Committee of the RDN regarding the re-application for a new rural village centre in Deep Bay.
I was shocked and disappointed that Area H Director Bill Veenhof voted to allow first reading of this application to go forward without previously having any consultation, meetings, surveys or polls to ascertain the feelings of the residents of Deep Bay, although he now says he will base his future vote on this project on a survey currently being conducted.
Veenhof made this decision to go ahead with first reading in spite of the fact that the RDN staff report had clearly stated that there were more negatives than positives regarding this application and staff recommended the application be refused.
Knowing this, Veenhof should have been guided by the staff report, but unfortunately he decided to go ahead and vote in favour of first reading.
He appeared to be quite confused as to what to do, intimating if he voted one way he would hurt folks who were in favour of the application or if he voted the other way he would hurt folks who were against the application.
If he was this confused, he should have abstained from voting or tabled a motion for this matter to be put back to a later date, after he had time to hold consultation, meetings and so on with the residents of Deep Bay.
He would then have been able to make a rational decision on this very important matter.
What happened to our democracy on April 9?
Greta Taylor
Bowser