[column width=”88%” padding=”10px”]Tuesday, February 23. EDITORIAL REPORT. It might say ‘Public Input’, even ‘Public Input on Current Issues’ but from now on there’ll be none of that. Last night at District of Sooke Committee of the Whole (and in more detail later in the mayor’s verbal report during Regular Council), a declaration was made by Acting Mayor Kerrie Reay that the only public input allowed at Committee of the Whole must be related to the agenda of that night’s meeting. This is a significant departure from current practice of the past eight years, where the public could wait the long haul to the end of a Committee of the Whole meeting and have a few minutes to provide comment on issues of the day. Reay said that the District’s lawyers had declared it so, based on current local government legislation in BC.
There were more than a few members of the audience who reacted to this retraction of public opportunity. And after the meeting at least one sitting Councillor also pondered the impact: “How will the public make their opinions known to Council?” it was said to West Shore Voice News by Councillor Brenda Parkinson.
As a relatively lengthy discourse on how Council conducts meetings and also how social media has commented on matters of District business lately, Acting Mayor Reay dug deep — pulling up voting results from the 2014 municipal election and how many hours she has worked on various committees, to try and support her point about the rules.
In an interview with West Shore Voice News between the 6 pm Committee of the Whole and the 7pm Council meeting last night, Acting Mayor Reay was asked how she proposed that the public indeed make their input known to Council, if they can’t speak spontaneously (at the designated public input portion of the agenda). The answer was “maybe town hall meetings”, but the longer part of the response was about following rules, based on her 30-year career in Corrections. Reay has recently retired from a full career in the penal system, and appears to believe that there is direct cross-over into how taxpayers and the public should conform. Respectful public debate — indeed, even polite civil disobedience — looks like it will be a challenge for Sooke residents with a point to make, in any proximal future.
Tomorrow is Pink Shirt Day as a statement of anti-bullying. During Reay’s report at Council last night, Councillor Parkinson made very clear the hot pink hand-sleeves on her long-sleeve sweater. The rest of Council gave no feedback on Reay’s report. The audience listened hard, and seemed to take hard the ‘new rules’ of spending time in the audience at a Sooke Council meeting. Going forward, it looks like participation in the public discourse of Sooke is under tight containment. No better way than that to promote an underground response.
At the District of Sooke there appears to be an increasing trend to establishing structured public input at the risk of minimizing the openness of government to its taxpayers. This seems counter to the trend at the federal level of government where engagement with the public appears to be flourishing. ~ WSV
Copyright 2016 West Shore Voice News [/column]
[end_columns]