Editor:
So the majority on Sechelt council wants to manipulate us in a cynical ploy to coerce taxpayers into supporting their unpopular and ill-fated sewage treatment plant?
This experimental technology, costing millions more than proven systems, built in the heart of residential downtown on a limiting small lot beside an ecological reserve and sensitive ocean habitat on land that may liquefy during an earthquake, is the single largest expenditure undertaken by the District of Sechelt. One may think that a project like this would have merited prior democratic consultation with taxpayers, but no with single-minded arrogance the taxpayers were not to be trusted to participate in this decision.
So now that construction is irreversible they reveal the plan that they had all along, to come to us later in a referendum for a proper financing arrangement that could have and should have been voted on long before decisions were made.
With voter approval new large amounts of our municipal reserves would newly be made available for rash new adventures like airport expansion or perhaps new locations for $750,000 roundabouts, all before the next election.
It seems that they only just found out, surprise, surprise, that they can get an approximate million dollar grant from their allies in the Conservative Party of Canada through the FCM, but only if we hold our noses and support their cynical ploy for referendum approval.
Neil Edmunds, Sechelt
