After legal opinion, Sechelt council rescinded their motion for council mandated mediation between Target Marine Hatcheries and those opposed to their application for rezoning at the Feb. 17 council meeting.
Council's decision meant those in attendance hoping to see first reading and a public hearing set, will have to wait a little while longer.
An overflow crowd came to Wednesday's meeting to see what council would do with a recommendation coming out of an in-camera meeting saying council would not engage in a mediation process due to the legal view that their participation could "impact the validity of the public hearing process on the application."
That part of the recommendation passed. How-ever, the second part asked for another public information meeting to be hosted by Target Marine to look at the issue of entering into mediation with those opposed to their application. That mediation meeting would be held without any help from the District.
There seemed to be some discrepancy between the written motion and what Coun. Ann Kershaw said she had moved in-camera.
"This was my motion actually. Some of council still wanted to proceed with some sort of mediation or something, so what I said was, that council suggest that Target Marine and the immediate neighbourhood meet to discuss the issue if they so wish," Kershaw said.
Coun. Keith Thirkell was unhappy with the change, saying he liked the idea of a public information meeting facilitated by a neutral party.
"It happens all the time in municipal governments across the province; it's not abnormal," Thirkell said.
While some other councillors agreed mediation would be useful, they were not willing to request a public information meeting on the subject.
"Mediation won't solve this problem, and for us to get involved in any way is wrong," said Coun. Alice Lutes. "I think that, as has been suggested by our legal [department], it's not a place for government to be. It's not our place to do that kind of work. We're elected to make decisions, not do the back patting."
After more discussion, Kershaw's motion was passed with an amendment to suggest Target Marine Hatcheries meet with "concerned neighbours" rather than the "immediate neighbourhood."
"This particular discussion could occur no matter how council proceeds with the particular application, so they could be parallel processes, which I think the community would understand can happen," said Mayor Darren Inkster.
Administrator Rob Bremner noted that if any mediation does take place, a report on that discussion would "come up again at the community public hearing."
He also briefed council as to why council needed to rescind its motion on mediation.
"There are some ambiguities inside that bylaw that we needed cleared up," Bremner said. "We never received a response until Monday; hence, to add it as a late item tonight would have required a unanimous vote from council, and I'm not sure that we would have got that. But I think the bottom line here is that the process is the most important thing.
"I certainly understand the proponent in wanting to move along and get the zoning, and we want to be sure they have their day. But we also want to make sure the process is rock solid and we don't want to put the cart before the horse," Bremner said.
Two delegations appeared at the start of the meeting to discuss the proposed rezoning. Justin Henry was there on behalf of Target Marine, and Lynne Forrest came to speak on behalf of concerned citizens in the area.
Councillors prodded both parties to see if mediation was a possibility, but Henry didn't see any ground to be made. Forrest noted she would not be interested in mediation and added that she could not speak on behalf of all the concerned citizens.
"I really couldn't say for the community, I could only say for myself and we gave an accommodation with the M3 zoning originally," Forrest said, referring to a special zoning given to Target Marine Hatcheries in 1994 after consultation with the nearby community, that specifically stated no fish processing would take place on site.
Henry also thought there was no room for mediation between the two parties.
"You can't mediate against someone's position. If their position as presented earlier today is that it shouldn't be there, then that's something that can't be negotiated or mediated," Henry added.
The application could come back to council at its first meeting in March.
