Editor:
When I submitted a letter to Delta's mayor and council to express support for the Century Group's development plan for Southlands, I expected to go on the record for my views.
I expected the elected officials, and the staff concerned with the issue, to note my personal information to verify the legitimacy of my input. What I did not expect was that someone opposed to the development proposal would go trolling through the council correspondence, noting my personal information, in order to contact me.
Therefore, I was completely shocked when a person I have never met or spoken to emailed me and began his message by saying, "I know you have voiced opposition to the Century Group's Southlands development application."
In fact, I have never, either privately or publicly, voiced anything but strong support for the Century Group's Southlands development application. When I asked how he had obtained my email address, this person acknowledged he had found it "probably from an email that you sent to Delta which appeared in the correspondence files on Council Agenda."
So this person read through the correspondence (which I never intended for his perusal), overlooked or ignored my viewpoint, and then had the audacity to harvest my personal information and use it to solicit my participation in his cause.
This person went on to say he was asking council to place a public copy of a binder containing all the letters and comment sheets that had been received on the Southlands issue as of Nov. 16 in local libraries.
Given the unsavoury manner in which he has used this information, I sincerely hope this does not happen, and I urge council not to accede to his wishes.
I am sure many others,
like myself, did not intend to have our email addresses and street addresses used as a contact list so our privacy could be violated when we voiced our views on the Southlands issue. If this has happened to me, it has undoubtedly happened to others.
The Corporation of Delta confirms it did not put correspondence where it is accessible to the public so it could be used in this manner. Tactics such as these abuse the public process, invade the privacy of individuals and demonstrate how low people will stoop in order to get what they want.
Jane Emson
