Editor:
Something is seriously wrong in the Town of Gibsons; and, contrary to many accusations made by speakers at the March 10 public hearing on two bylaws, it is not with our Town council, nor with our professional staff.
The real problem is that the accepted grace of social propriety seems to have vanished, certainly amongst a small group of continual agitators known as the Gibsons Alliance of Business and Community Society (GABC).
One after another, the declared principals of this organization, five of whom were significantly defeated during our recent election, paraded to the microphone to try to influence both council and the audience with misinformation, some cherry-picked facts presented out of context, verbal abuse of council, staff and the contracted consultant, and made some remarks bordering upon slander.
If that wasn’t enough, the provincial Local Government Act rules, reinforced within the mayor’s opening remarks, were consistently ignored. Council is obliged to listen to thoughtful presentations, not to answer questions from the audience and not to be baited into a debate. But several who know these rules still tried to bait the mayor with questions, and when he replied that he would not, he was declared to be rude. Who is really the rude one? The one who insisted on questioning the mayor, coincidentally the same person soundly defeated in her November pursuit of the mayoralty.
Still not enough? Enter our former mayor to declare all kinds of irrelevant and inaccurate things, such that all he accomplished was to embarrass himself.
This hearing was about the OCP revision, not about any project such as the George. And the sitting council members garnered 71 per cent of all the votes cast in November, compared to the 29 per cent collected by the defeated candidates, with Gibsons having the sixth highest voter turnout in all of B.C. at 60-plus per cent.
GABC needs to rediscover its propriety.
Brian K. Sadler, Gibsons
