For the current majority on Qualicum Beach’s town council to frame an information meeting of 40 people as a review of the Official Community Plan is disingenuous.
I understand it may fulfill the letter of the law. However, it violates the spirit. It also negates the hard work invested in the OCP by staff, hundreds of residents over weeks of workshops as well as the cost of the outside professional facilitators which ran into the many thousands of dollars. Why did we invest all that time, energy, expertise and tax-dollars for an OCP the current council majority disregards?
I am grateful to the volunteers of the Qualicum Beach Residents’ Association who invest numerous hours and generously share their expertise to alert us to the significant and costly implications of what is being presented as “minor house-keeping” boundary changes. This should have been done by council. Given our OCP is an issue for the current council majority, negating it should have been an election issue. It wasn’t. Democracy is a process. It involves full disclosure, transparency and accountability between as well as during elections. Unfortunately, this is increasingly lacking at all levels of government, including our local one.
Fortunately, we have the hard working volunteers of the QBRA.
Yvonne Zarowny
Qualicum Beach
