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Directors add insult to failure

Editorial

There are two options available to the Sunshine Coast Regional District following the defeat of its alternative approval process for a long-term loan to finance water meter installation in the Sechelt area. Actually, three.

The first option is to finance the $6-million project instead with a short-term loan or a combination of a short-term loan and money from reserves.

The second option is to hold a referendum on the long-term loan in conjunction with the Oct. 20 civic election.

The third option is more of an afterthought because it’s not very realistic in light of the position the SCRD board has taken on water meters, or the fact that millions of dollars have already been spent installing meters in the rural areas and that Sechelt is the third and final phase before usage-based fees can be introduced. That option is to suspend the water-meter program and direct all funding and all political and administrative efforts on aggressively pursing increased water storage capacity or new sources of supply, or both. As said, that option is a long shot at best.

The fact remains, however, that many electors who opposed the financing bylaw did so to make that long-shot option, at least in their minds, politically viable. They used the AAP because it was the only democratic vehicle they were given – and they used it to shout from the rooftops a slogan that became their battle cry: “Water Not Meters.” And inasmuch as the AAP was defeated, they won.

Call it a misguided position or a lost cause, fine. But what really annoyed us was to hear some SCRD directors call it “misinformation.” Mistaking intention for surefire expectation, the picture they paint is of gullible hayseeds signing more than 2,400 forms because they were falsely led to believe that doing so would stop water meters in their tracks. It takes a special kind of blinkered arrogance to be able to dismiss such a failure so self-servingly.

At least other directors saw the AAP’s defeat for what it was – a protest vote, a slashing thumbs down to the SCRD for its slack performance on the water file.

It would be easy now for directors to push ahead with a short-term loan, but the SCRD went the AAP route because it was more fiscally prudent and that hasn’t changed. Therefore it makes more sense to take the long-term loan to a referendum.

We expect it would pass by a fair margin, but we could be wrong. That’s the thing about democracy: people don’t always give what other people consider the right answers.