Editor:
Art Olson’s letter regarding the recent Gibsons council meeting on The George (“Mayor keeps George on track”) raises contradictions I can explain. He accuses three councillors of being disorganized in concert. I’ll concede disorganization, which is because we weren’t in concert.
The meeting may have ended after 10 p.m., but took 2.5 hours before the bylaw came before council. Mr. Olson accuses councillors of attempting to derail the bylaw … yet after reaching compromise on a unanimous amendment, first reading also passed unanimously. Although this took about 25 minutes (a bit long, but I’ve seen worse), it was a successful if sloppy demonstration of reaching consensus — admittedly, a different dynamic from the previous council.
Mr. Olson seems frustrated by due diligence, not derailing. In his list of homework, he missed the Levelton geotechnical and Waterline hydrogeological peer reviews, which were ordered (unanimously) by the last council in January 2014. Over this long period, the peer reviewers and developer’s team have been communicating, yet as of this month, Levelton still could not recommend moving forward.
Although second reading is conditional upon this problem being addressed, such a situation warrants questions, not rubber-stamping. Furthermore, the recommendation for first reading was an extensive motion with multiple conditions — legitimately raising discussion, questions and consideration of amendments, which is what councils are elected to do. The overriding contradiction in Mr. Olson’s letter was that councillors aren’t doing their homework — when that is exactly what he saw in action.
I regret that as a new council we were evidently not comfortable working together that evening. I’d estimated where colleagues would come from, but ended up being surprised by suggestions, tones and/or actions from everyone. Different perspectives are not a bad thing, but I’m hopeful next time we’ll be better prepared to discuss them and that our community will be, too.
Silas White, councillor, Town of Gibsons
