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After the September 15 Gibsons Council meeting, I was left wondering.
At the meeting Suzanne Senger asked Mayor Wayne Rowe the following question:
“Mayor Rowe, I am aware that the Office of the Ombudsperson of British Columbia is currently investigating complaints made by citizens of Gibsons that it appears you have a conflict of interest with the regard to the George hotel and residence development. Has the Office of the BC Ombudsperson contacted you directly about this?”
Rowe said he had not been contacted directly and punted the question to the Chief Administrative Officer, Emanuel Machado, who acknowledged there was a claim of conflict.
It is important to recognize that the Ombudsperson’s office does not investigate every complaint they receive. If the Ombudsperson did not think that the mayor’s appearance of conflict of interest merits investigating, why would they assign an investigator to look into it?
The more Mayor Rowe is not forthcoming regarding serious questions about conflict of interest, the more I have to ask myself: Does the mayor owe us, the citizens and taxpayers of Gibsons, more of an explanation about his relationship with the George proponent?
Joe Peters, Gibsons
