At the start of the CRD board meeting on June 29, every regional director received a brown paper bag with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
The sandwich was in response to previous comments made by Juan de Fuca Electoral Area Director Mike Hicks to the Sooke News Mirror in regard to the Dogwood Initiative and its student “army” eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on summer holiday.
“They took my comments with a great spirit of humour,” Hicks said. “It was refreshing that they can enjoy the humour.”
Included in the agenda for the meeting was the Marine Trail Holdings application which would have gone to first and second reading and then a scheduled public hearing, if Land Use Committee A gave it the go ahead.
Instead Director Vic Derman, a Saanich councillor, asked staff to look into a number of decisions made in Central Saanich that were inconsistent with the Regional Growth Strategy (RGS).
The RGS was being used by opponents of the Marine Trail Holdings development proposal as reasons for not allowing the resort development to go forward.
Hicks made a motion to change the order of the agenda to move the Marine Trail Holdings Ltd., Rezoning Application further up, but this was defeated and the application will come forward at the July 13 board meeting.
“If they don’t deal with it on July 13, I won’t subject my alternate Wally Vowles to deal with this,” Hicks said, adding the application would then have to wait until September.
“It is a total injustice to the applicant, the process and all the people involved,” said Hicks. “I’m almost powerless against the full might of the CRD Board, if they want to exercise their power.”
He said the board was procrastinating and all this was doing was delaying the process and driving wedges between people, directors and groups.
“My goal is to get on with it one way or another. This is festering now because of the CRD Board – it is not my style,” Hicks said.
Almost 50 speakers turned up to the June 29 meeting, and CRD staff had to bring up visitors one or two at a time because the sixth-floor boardroom was over-capacity. Staff set up a teleconference room on the main floor for additional visitors.
– with files from Emma Prestwich
