CVRD budget meeting not good enough
I attended what was advertised by the CVRD as a budget meeting. It was at Kerry Park on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
This was not your regular type of meeting. It was more of a klatch. I had hoped to ask a question of the members of the board but this did not materialize. Instead, one had to wander the room and find someone and ask each individual the same question. You had to wait for others who were already engaged in a conversation with that same person.
I believe this type of meeting was designed so that your question could be negligible. If one were to ask if anything came about as a result of your question, this method could be used as plausible deniability. It does not get recorded as it would at a proper meeting and others in attendance would have witnessed it.
What a waste of time. So much for public participation. I don’t know who is calling the shots at the CVRD but this was a calculated undertaking to keep the public from being engaged in the process. In order to be heard, you have to attend the meetings at the CVRD where you are allotted three minutes out of the 15 minutes allowed for the public.
Special interest groups get all the time they want and there is back and forth conversation with board members. The public is not worthy to dare to ask for more time. All that is expected of us is to stay at home and let the board and their staff go about their business, without being bothered.
This is their version of democracy.
Ed Aiken
Cobble Hill