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Inquisition or due dilligence?

The use of torture, garrotting, and burning alive during the Inquisition hardly compares with email questions

North Saanich Councillors, Craig Mearns, Conny McBride and Dunstan Browne stormed out of the council meeting claiming they were subjected to an ‘inquisition’.

The use of torture, garrotting, and burning alive during the Inquisition hardly compares with email questions.

Along with Councillor Daly the group have acquired the name ‘Gang of Four’ and vote as a block to promote land development.

They controlled the selection of the consultant and terms of reference for the Housing Strategy Implementation Plan.

Councillors Elsie McMurphy and Celia Stock as well as Mayor Alice Finall have a duty to clarify the process and potential outcomes of adopting recommendation of this report especially in the absence of critique by the Gang.

This dispute is not simply pro and con land development.

North Saanich citizens need to know the impact of increased density on services (sewer, school, hospital etc.), traffic load and parking, to name a few issues.

What we know for sure is this melodrama will cost tax-payers.

First, the expenses for the council meeting which was abandoned and the replacement meetings necessary to complete the work.

Second, the public acquisitions of incompetence directed at municipal staff are risk factors for staff loss, legal action and barrier to recruitment.

Citizens need to be engaged in municipal politics to ensure they have appropriate information to provide input to community development which extends far beyond the single issue of sub-divisions.

The North Saanich municipal website provides meeting dates, agendas, minutes and video of council and committee of the whole meetings.

Take note, informed citizens cannot be manipulated.

Noreen Campbell

North Saanich