Saturday June 15, 2024 | SOOKE, BC [Updated June 16, 2024]
LETTER submitted by Margarita Dominguez, SAFARS (West Coast Feral Cat Rescue & Pet Food Bank)
Posted in Island Social Trends [publication does *not* imply editorial agreement]
This letter is in the interest of Sooke taxpayers who need to know the District of Sooke’s circumventing behavior regarding land zoning investigations and complaints.
Animal rescue groups wanting to obtain a kennel license in Sooke need to be informed that their dream can be easily shuttered by the district’s internal policies. Policies that give the complete power of decision making to bylaw officers and that disregard the government bylaw system. A system that clearly describes that: “Local government bylaws may only be amended or repealed by bylaw”.
Complaint and Bylaw Enforcement Policy, 2009, adopted by Council on June 22, 2009:
- P.1 # 1.2 – Reads as follow, “…the highest priority will be to respond to written complaints where the complainants have provided their name, address and telephone number.”
- P. 1 # 1.4 – Reads “Priority on routine matters such as no permit, violations of the Zoning bylaw, etc, will be determined on the basis of the order received…”
Back on May 11, 2015, my cat rescue shelter was shut down by the above mentioned 2009 Complaint Bylaw. Our land zoning requirement investigation was done with just one anonymous complaint.
Since the year 2014, I have been advocating to the District of Sooke to have its own animal shelter and, as well, to change the animal control municipal and CRD’s bylaws regarding amount of pets allowed per household.
Due to my advocacy and animal rescue work I am in contact with other groups. We have heard that a CRD bylaw officer has for about the last approximately nine years been running a never-registered animal rescue in Saanichton, who has since opened a an “all kind of animals shelter” on Connie Rd, in Sooke. The land is a 2.77-acre strata parcel and that The Farm Rescue group has never been registered in BC under any legal status. The operator is not registered as a sole-proprietor.
This appears to be a conflict of interest, and it is also unclear whether or not CRD is paying for all the medical treatments, medication, supplies, transportation, and housing facility for the cats and dogs that have been sold from that location for approximately nine years.
Without business registration, professional or private, there are no books and there are no taxes to pay.
Are the best animals impounded by the pound secretly kept from their owners and later sold at The Farm Rescue? Impossible to know without an audit. Which I have already requested of the CRD CAO, Ted Robbins. Because he did not answer me I escalated the investigation already to the Office of the Ombudsperson.
So, when I addressed the District of Sooke’s bylaw department asking them to investigate if The Farm Rescue’s zoning complied with their requirement and provided them with parcel number and precise information their answer was a refusal to investigate. The reason they gave me was that a new civic policy was amended in 2021 now requiring two complaints from neighbors showing their dwellings are affected by the Farm’s operations.
Consequently, on June 6, 2024, I messaged the District of Sooke’s CAO, Ms. Gray, with a cc to Council, asking her to send me the Bylaw amendment showing the change. Because according to the BC government’s Bylaw Amendment, Repeal and Conversion Requirement article, January 5, 2023, “…local government bylaws may only be amended or repealed by bylaw”. No answer yet from Ms.Gray, as of June 12, 2024.
Conclusion, my experience with the district and with the CRD animal control tells me that this case seems to be a cover-up to place one of their “buddies” first on line before all the other animal rescue groups who would like to apply for a shelter permit.
As a footnote, the District is applying a policy from 2021 instead of the 2009 bylaw itself. On this new policy they eliminated the No. 1.4 from the bylaw which is exactly the one for our case, a violation of the Zoning bylaw. Instead they used the one for illegal suites. It is just an staff report dated October 25, 2021 that Sooke Council approved, but it is not a bylaw amendment.
The 2009 bylaw did not talk at all about anonymous complaints.
~ LETTER by Margarita Dominguez, SAFARS (West Coast Feral Cat Rescue & Pet Food Bank)
===== Some links to support the above letter (submitted by the letter-writer):