Editor:
It has been suggested by Sechelt Coun. Mike Shanks in his most recent criticisms of the elected mayor and council (Coast Reporter, Jan. 18) that decisions made over the last year regarding rezoning for a local sand and gravel mine were improperly influenced by certain members of council.
That is to say, Shanks claims that because the owners of the company have grown up in Sechelt, and knew one councillor from growing up together, that the community believes "certain members participating in the rezoning discussion and application" should have excused themselves from the issue.
It is clear Mr. Shanks believed himself to be in a conflict of interest, as at the time he cited bias and excused himself from the decision, though he never fully stated why.
It is also clear that, had he participated in the vote, he may have contributed the public input to which he is now claiming to be listening. However, events went as they did, and the rezoning was passed with a majority vote, adherent to the municipal governing guidelines.
The previous council did a lot of discussing, spent a lot of taxpayers' money on research and essentially accomplished nothing. This was why an almost entirely new council was elected. The community chose the current council. Now that the economy has finally caught up with the Sunshine Coast, the small groups of dissension are using the opportunity to publicly denigrate this elected council's hard work, making personal associations between the council and their supporters that just didn't exist at the time of the rezoning application.
I suggest that if Shanks wants the best for Sechelt, he should stop criticizing and start working with his elected team.
We all want the best for Sechelt and that includes showing the outside world that Sechelt is a united community with positive, resident-focused solutions.
Bailey Mulligan, Sechelt
