Mayor Jakubeit has thumbed his nose at BC Civil Liberties, a well-respected legal organization that sent free legal advice to the city.
Jakubeit publicly reiterated his previous statement refusing Gerry Karr a seat on the parks committee. “We respect the good intentions of Mr. Karr, but if you are in the middle of suing the city about park use and continue to be very vocal about the city’s park processes, not only are you in conflict, but the likelihood of your views being biased or jaded would be higher than others in the community that had put their name forth.”
Civil Liberties made perfectly clear that Mr. Karr is entitled to his opinion and the city does not have the right to blacklist him because of it. The mayor just doesn’t get it. With 8,000 signatures under his belt I expect Mr. Karr is fully conversant with the wishes of the majority. Better so than anyone on this council or the present line-up on the Parks Committee. I suspect this is not the last the mayor will hear from Civil Liberties.
There is also the spurious city lawsuit against the Penticton Lakeside Resort? Here a business is expected to have a greater in-depth knowledge of city electrical malfunctions than the utility providing the service.
Despite Councillor Tarik Saheed’s comment that we should all relax and have a glass of wine; too little common sense is being displayed by this council. This mayor and council appear to me to be pursuing personal agendas at the expense of civil rights. If council continually exercises bad judgment resulting in frivolous lawsuits why should taxpayers’ be on the hook? It is time this mayor and council resigned and we had another civic election.
The mayor pointed to crumbling infrastructure and the deplorable state of our water and sewer systems as an excuse for the dramatic increase in taxes. Yet given a choice, council has opted to continue with a scaled down version of a downtown revitalization plan.
The federal government is expected to give away up to $60-billion in infrastructure grants over the next 10 years to those communities with shovel ready plans. So why are we remodeling instead of fixing badly-needed pipes?
Elvena Slump
penticton
