Dear Sir
I am writing to comment on a couple of things, one is to congratulate and support Richard Pope in his efforts to advance the public's interest in the problems of the Public Works being conducted at the West Harbour Headlands and secondly to point out that his frustration in not being able to engage with Council on this matter was foreseen.
Richard has pointed out in great detail the jurisdictional matter of the lands - are they in the Nature park or not as well as laying out the damages done to the land by the Public Works.
But Richard's efforts to engage with Council have been reduced to writing a letter to the Editor because of the changes made to the Procedural Bylaw this time last year. As I write in a blog post about this issue and I quote:
In the re-organisation of Local Democracy, Council first eliminated the Public Advisory Committees and then made it impossible for a local Citizen or Group to appear at a Committee meeting or a Regular Council Meeting more than once at either of those venues to discuss the same topic. So if you have a beef you only get one public appearance, for five minutes, to express concerns or support of any issue.
This lack of public engagement opportunity by Council may have been intentional but to be kind one can certainly describe it as 'an unintended consequence' of the Bylaw.
Either way this incident illustrates what was said at the time of the discussions - "Local Democracy will suffer" and it has.
I write in greater detail in a post (https://burdreport.ca/blog/2025/01/11/an-opportunity-for-local-democracy/) about this issue and use it as opportunity to revive "Local Democracy".
Yours Sincerely
ben burd