Difficult to trust now

The City’s attempt to rewrite the Official Community Plan (OCP) to avoid a BC Supreme Court ruling, instructing them to comply with the OCP, is like increasing the speed limit after having received a speeding ticket, hoping the Courts will cancel the ticket. If that indeed is possible it will also mark the day the concept of law, order, and good government has been abandoned to become the joke of the century, while the laws of the wild West become the new reality.

A bigger loss is the fact that our city council’s actions challenges the integrity of all politicians, incumbent and aspiring, who all will be suspect of being corrupt to the core, promoting speculation politicians can be bought and that the only challenge in the process will be to determine how much money will be required to get that permit. That will make it very difficult to find candidates with the commitment and integrity to perform as our Trustees on city council.

The November election is only a few months from now, and those of our incumbent Councillors who are aspiring to get another term need to have a hard look in their respective mirrors. Considering the massive opposition to having any buildings on Beach Avenue higher than 3 storeys, they would have to be dreaming in technicolour to believe they would get more than a handful of votes and they became tone deaf when they turned their backs on the people, listening to the Chamber’s full time noise maker.

They violated the spirit and intent of our OCP, insinuating compliance is voluntary. They violated the trust the people vested in them to serve and protect their rights and properties and instead committed themselves to filling the pockets of an out of town developer, whose exclusive interest is making a quick profit.

Their actions have been blatant and arrogant and they have made it abundantly clear they cannot be trusted.

Andy Thomsen