Switch and Bait (CRD Core Area Liquid Waste Management Committee)
Richard Atwell
RITE Plan Facebook page
June 19, 2014
For most of the duration of this project, the number of Directors at the sewage committee table has totalled 14.
- This meant that 8 votes were needed to approve recommendations and motions.
In December 2012, after the census results were processed by the BC Gov't, the Minister allowed Langford to send a second representative to the CRD because its population exceed the 25,000 multiple and so a total of 15 Directors now sit at the table.
- This meant that 7-7 ties were no longer possible unless a member was absent but it still required 8 votes to win.
At yesterday's meeting, CRD "pulled a fast-one" and allowed Alastair Bryson to sit on the sewage committee for the first time. He is Mayor of Central Saanich and not a participant in the program and this has increased the number of Directors on the sewage committee to 16.
- This now means that 9 votes are now required to win and this has changed the game and altered the outcome after a long process to get here.
Bryson is sitting and voting because it is allowed under Section 33 of the CRD's procedures bylaw but what's at fault is that he is supposed to be neutral as chair and execute the will of the board.
Instead he came as an advocate for Seaterra and the McLoughlin site and in an attempt to save the project put forth his own motion to bribe Esquimalt that passed.
While legal, this just continues to raise the level of odour around the CRD's process and governance model.
How this can be called democratic at this stage is beyond me but its par for the course down at the CRD.
Richard Atwell
RITE Plan Facebook page
June 19, 2014
For most of the duration of this project, the number of Directors at the sewage committee table has totalled 14.
- This meant that 8 votes were needed to approve recommendations and motions.
In December 2012, after the census results were processed by the BC Gov't, the Minister allowed Langford to send a second representative to the CRD because its population exceed the 25,000 multiple and so a total of 15 Directors now sit at the table.
- This meant that 7-7 ties were no longer possible unless a member was absent but it still required 8 votes to win.
At yesterday's meeting, CRD "pulled a fast-one" and allowed Alastair Bryson to sit on the sewage committee for the first time. He is Mayor of Central Saanich and not a participant in the program and this has increased the number of Directors on the sewage committee to 16.
- This now means that 9 votes are now required to win and this has changed the game and altered the outcome after a long process to get here.
Bryson is sitting and voting because it is allowed under Section 33 of the CRD's procedures bylaw but what's at fault is that he is supposed to be neutral as chair and execute the will of the board.
Instead he came as an advocate for Seaterra and the McLoughlin site and in an attempt to save the project put forth his own motion to bribe Esquimalt that passed.
While legal, this just continues to raise the level of odour around the CRD's process and governance model.
How this can be called democratic at this stage is beyond me but its par for the course down at the CRD.