A strange thing happened after adjournment Wednesday afternoon at District of Sechelt council's committee of the whole meeting.
When Mayor John Henderson invited questions from the nearly full gallery, senior Betty-Anne Pap took him to task for not allowing the RCMP to speak at the meeting.
Both Staff Sgt. Herb Berdahl, the Sunshine Coast detachment commander, and Sgt. Mike McCarthy, who penned the RCMP's referral letter on the one-way Cowrie Street plan, had sat in the gallery for the whole meeting, along with officials from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) and the Sunshine Coast Transit System.
They were there in case council had questions about their responses to the plan, which flagged major issues around safety, public access and operational hurdles, some of which could end up costing a lot of money for someone.
The group sat through a presentation on the Sechelt Visitor Centre and endured a lengthy discussion about a variance permit for a cabin expansion in Tuwanek.
When John Mercer, superintendent of parks and public works, advised council that the officials were sitting in the gallery and could answer questions on the Cowrie Street plan, Henderson dismissed the suggestion, informing Mercer that it was not council protocol.
The Mounties left silently after the meeting, but Mrs. Pap told Mayor Henderson that his comment made her feel "ashamed."
"I believe they were here to talk about safety, and I think that's a major concern," Pap said. "They are very busy. They don't have time to come to meetings unless they have a really good reason. I am really ashamed that they were not allowed to speak."
It was a harsh criticism, but I understood Mrs. Pap's feeling.
Although written with due respect, Sgt. McCarthy's letter highlights the RCMP's serious concerns around the idea of blocking off Cowrie to eastbound traffic between Ocean and Trail avenues.
The plan would reduce emergency response from the detachment to one exit point - Highway 101. That would leave the Mounties with one route that is often congested with high traffic volumes and "several choke points that severely limit response to the areas east and northeast."
Under the current system, the second exit point from Shorncliffe to Cowrie creates emergency routes that give RCMP "the flexibility we need for safe and timely access to east and northeast Sechelt and beyond," which McCarthy noted is the direction for the majority of the detachment's emergency response calls.
But if Cowrie goes one way, the only access to the northeast, onto Ocean Avenue, "leads directly into a densely populated residential area that includes multiple parks/playgrounds and severely restricted speed zones," McCarthy wrote. "From a public/police safety perspective this is not a practical option as an emergency route."
The RCMP asked the District to omit the portion of Cowrie between Ocean and Trail from the plan. The request, however, was not acknowledged nor discussed at the meeting. Nor were McCarthy's "very real concerns" about losing a key exit point for emergency response, although councillors Alice Lutes and Mike Shanks did call attention to the litany of concerns identified by the experts.
Instead, the implementation date was delayed five weeks until June 21 and it sounds like the block between Wharf and Inlet will remain two-way, although it's not certain now exactly which plan is supposed to roll out on the first day of summer.
Rash and cavalier. That's how I would describe this action.
