What do Delta area plans and requests for information from Delta taxpayers have in common? Apparently quite a bit.
At Monday's Delta council meeting, several residents asked why they were being faced with a development proposal on the Southlands, just months after a Tsawwassen Area Plan process resulted in the Southlands being retained in an agricultural designation.
Mayor Lois Jackson's answer and the ensuing silence from councillors should be of grave concern to not only residents of Ladner and North Delta, who are just embarking on their own area plan, but a warning to all B.C. taxpayers.
According to Jackson, they were "just following normal process."
What's the point in being engaged in public consultation that our elected officials are not expected to honour?
What residents learned was, that after hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars were expended, two years of endless meetings, an expensive poll and a tremendous amount of confusion, the new plan was a waste of time. What is the point if all that public discourse is a huge waste of capital and human resources?
I had a conversation with a Century employee, Bob Ransford, at the recent Southlands information meeting, who informed me that what Century required was a zoning change, pure and simple.
None of the plans being given at the "presentation" were guaranteed. Like our area plan, nothing is written in stone and could be changed at anytime after approval, provided, of course, the developer stays within the guidelines of the new zoning.
At least he was honest in telling me that and I did note that we only saw a development concept, not an application, being given at the council meeting.
While Delta spends thousands on area plans it can disregard, it appar-ently doesn't have the resources to deal with requests made through the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act.
One would think the goings on between staff members, politicians and developers would be public.
Nope. In some cases the public is being forced to pay upwards of $500 before Delta will provide what should be readily available public information.
Surprisingly, there have been a couple of residents who have paid the money, only to have their requests stalled. I have been contacted by other residents who are unable to pay upfront for their chance to take a look at what's going on in Delta.
There is undoubtedly a cost incurred by Delta, and other arms of government, to provide this kind of information, but I can't help but wonder whether the fees charged and the delays imposed are tactics intended to foil such requests.
Why is it that Delta is willing to expend loads of taxpayer time and dollars on public consultations it can, and does, ignore but when a resident requests information Delta pleads poverty, forcing our engaged residents to be kept in the dark?
