Headline March 30: “Regional director angry and feels betrayed.”
Quote: from director’s remarks with respect to a proposal to alter and/or enlarge the composition of Land Use Committee A: “I’m really hurt – no question. It’s a total slam on the governance of the JDF.”
The director refers disparagingly to “a few hundred emails from UVic students.” Are young university students and 79-year-old idealists, such as myself, to be ridiculed and not listened to on matters which are of long-term Regional Growth Strategy concern? Not, I hope, only by a committee comprised of a majority of, I suspect, development-sympathetic members who refuse to see the big picture.
The director’s outrage leads me to suspect that his mind is already made up. Are the likes of the B.C. Landowners Association and pro-development types, whose overt and covert influence is very powerful, the only voices worthy of serious consideration?
By the way, director, I feel insulted, totally body slammed, steamed, betrayed and hurt by your remarks. My daughter was raised in Otter District and is a UVic student. She has hiked the whole of the JDF trail. I want her and the whole area to enjoy what remains of the rural and wilderness experience that it was my good fortune to move into 30 years ago. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever. Let us not sell our inheritance for a “mess of pottage.”
Byron Tweedy
Otter District
