During its April 17 regular meeting, Sechelt council took time to address how members of the public reach out to them, following a recent string of confrontational emails sent to council members asking for information on water.
Coun. Alton Toth presented the correspondence, saying that his political learnings were called into question when he couldn’t answer the recent letter writers' questions to their satisfaction.
“I've been attacked, I've been threatened and I've had demands for my resignation over the course of this term so far and we’re only 18 months in,” said Toth. “While I'm not going anywhere, behaviours like these are unacceptable towards another human being, and especially more so towards our staff and the regional district staff, who are doing the jobs that they're trained and qualified to do.”
The emails to council were included in the agenda and one email voiced frustration that Toth was the only councillor to respond to them, stating that the councillors do not care about water. (Notably, water services in Sechelt are the jurisdiction of the Sunshine Coast Regional District [SCRD].)
“It's not because I don't care about the water issue. If I don't care about this critical issue then I don't deserve to be in this seat,” said Coun. Donna Bell. She said that she felt that Toth, as vice chair of the SCRD board, did “a very solid job” of answering the questions to the best of his ability.
Coun. Adam Shepherd raised the point that Toth offered to connect the letter writer to the CAO of the regional district, who is much more involved in the issues they were asking about. The letter writer, however, declined.
“I think what we read in these emails is born out of uncertainty, born out of fear and we can hopefully deal with that with the people that we have working on all these different factors,” said Mayor John Henderson.
In a later interview, Toth – who is both a Sechelt councillor and SCRD director – said that responses like this from the public come and go throughout the term but the main difference this time is that all the anger, frustration and fingerpointing are themed around water-related issues.
Toth said that almost any time council hears from the public, it is about a complaint. “When things are going well, it's easy to forget that your government exists, that's the thing about local government – if it's doing its job perfectly, you don't even think it's there,” said Toth.
Toth said it feels like certain individuals are sowing a certain level of fear-mongering and distrust in Sechelt that isn’t warranted.
In the past, Sechelt has been careful not to give credence to people who interact in this way, but if people are going to attack staff and continue to attack people in the community who volunteer, council has the right to put it on the agenda and discuss it, Toth said.
“I don't deny that there is a certain level of angst within the community when it comes to water supply. Especially since we did go through an emergency like the drought emergency in 2022,” Toth said.
Earlier this year, Toth walked out of a Sechelt council meeting when a last-minute delegation was added to the agenda without a unanimous vote. He said the district received several emails calling for his resignation following this.
Reflecting on how correspondence between the public and local governments differs and how it has evolved, Toth said, “It used to be quite the ordeal for somebody to submit correspondence to council, you'd have to type it up or handwrite it up and you'd have to drop it off to municipal hall [or] you'd have to mail it in.
“Whereas today, you can be sitting on the toilet on your phone and writing the council to complain about something.”
Toth said that when people reach out to council, it is important to remember that its members live here too and are affected by the same issues. He added that if you wouldn’t say it at the grocery store with your grandmother on your arm, you shouldn’t write it in an email.
“You get more work done with senior levels of government by engaging in a positive manner, there's no need to tear anyone down to try and validate a viewpoint.”
Jordan Copp is the Coast Reporter’s civic and Indigenous affairs reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
