The Morning Star editorial of Sept. 20, Water plan scrutiny needed, says some Greater Vernon Water users may be disappointed and frustrated that Gyula Kiss was not appointed to the RDNO stakeholders advisory committee.
They need not be. He himself said it was expected, and he’s not going away.
I also applied for inclusion to the committee and was rejected. I can vouch for Gyula’s comment that “dissent is not appreciated within the regional district.”
My expectations were low from the outset.
When I put on their application that I was qualified to professionally evaluate technical memoranda and capable of offering opinion on best practices and alternatives, and to endorse or challenge views of SAC advisors, I knew my chances of being included were small.
When David Sewell, the CAO of RDNO, says, “It’s not an attempt to silence critics, it’s to engage and walk through in a reasoned manner what we’ve done, what we haven’t done and why the master plan is where it is…,” it sounds like his goal is to indoctrinate rather than solicit advice.
Hopefully the first agenda item of the new SAC will be to discuss and confront some of the list of assumptions developed by RDNO staff.
RDNO politicians have stated the committee meetings will be open to the public.
I’ll be there.
Like Gyula, I’m not going away either and will continue to offer my somewhat radical opinions to successful applicant Terry Mooney, of the Citizens for Changes to the Master Water Plan, and others.
Dana Mills
Enderby
