Editor:
I would like to comment on your editorial “On the ground running” published in this paper on November 25, 2022 where you speak to the immediate changes for the newly elected governments of Sechelt and Gibsons. I agree, our council changes are cause for great concern, especially for active observers of council meetings, who ask important questions during the inquiry periods.
This new plan to reduce council meetings to one a month will reduce delegations by half and leave little time for debate. It also will do away with public inquiries, committee reports and councillor reports, all to speed up the agenda. Where does that leave the engaged citizen like myself? There is absolutely no time to hear concerns from the taxpaying citizen!
My questions now have to be emailed to the Mayor and Council since I will not be able to publicly question their decisions in meetings. Mayor White has promised transparent governance yet he insists on only communicating by email and by community meetings where they control the narrative. This does not address our right as citizens to be heard on issues in a publicly recorded meeting.
Gibsons has done away with “inquiry period” right off the bat with no formula for public input set up. Just a vague promise of future public meetings. I understand that our new mayor wants to rid the town of confrontation, but, squashing our right to publicly question in a council meeting might backfire and produce the opposite. I ask our new mayor and council, for the sake of democracy and transparency, to reconsider this amendment before final reading on Dec. 6 and to retain public inquiries until proper community meetings are established to bridge the gap and prove there is a better venue for citizen involvement.
Respectfully,
Judith Bonkoff, Gibsons
