Open letter to White Rock mayor and council.
Re: City leaders stand firm on trash plan, April 2.
I am confused. Perhaps you could clarify this for me. Your city clerk advised me in email that the decision regarding “garbage collection was made December 15, 2014 in a closed meeting of council in accordance with the Community Charter Section 90(1)(k).”
Clause ‘k’ in the charter is limited to be used as an exception only to matters that are at their “preliminary” stages. Ignore the fact that the proclamation by the city is to cease the service – not provide the service – and that your own CAO has not been able to identify what harm might come to the city by opening the meeting to the public, but just focus on the first clause of qualification, that the provisions be “in their preliminary stages.”
In the April 2 edition of Peace Arch News, Mayor Wayne Baldwin is quoted as saying this about the secret, closed meeting in December: “The only thing that happened at that in-camera meeting was to decide to go ahead.”
In my mind there is absolutely nothing “preliminary” about making the final decision for the termination of a decades old core municipal service to the 11,000 residents of White Rock who live in stratas.
I wonder, could this be a violation of the Community Charter? Is this exactly the kind of illegal secret, closed meeting that the Community Charter intends to eliminate in order to achieve the goals of public process, public participation and open government?
Ross Buchanan, White Rock
