Your deaf ears

(Addressed to Gibsons council and copied to the Local)

Please accept this letter as my condemnation of your choice of the timing of the vote on the Winn Road closure during a regular council meeting on July 11, and your lack of engagement thereof.

This was just a regular council meeting, but, appearing on the agenda was the long overdue item that has never been discussed with your citizens about the Winn Road “closure.” This should have been the long awaited public hearing that you owed this community and that we have been waiting for, for over three years. It was not.

In fact some citizens even filed a petition through a lawyer to the Supreme Court in order that the town would follow procedure and hold a public hearing. But alas, no. To our dismay, you deemed to sneak this item through, in a council meeting, in the middle of summer while no one was paying attention. Then to make matters worse, when the item came up on the agenda you announce that since the matter is before the courts you cannot answer any questions or comment. Come on, really, then why have it up for a vote? How can that be? Was the vote even legal?

You should be ashamed of yourselves for having such a lack of respect for the people of this community who did manage to show up that summer evening. Instead you sat there, Mayor Rowe and Councillors SanJenko and Valeriote with your heads down barely acknowledging all the speakers and their pleas for a fairer deal for Gibsons.

The vote was taken after many impassioned speakers spoke to your deaf ears. You justified your pre-decided voting position by clarifying the vote was about the road closure not about the gross give away of our town’s assets which most citizens spoke to.

If you followed the rules it would be easier for all of us. I could have stayed home, sat on my deck, sipping a cool glass of white wine on that beautiful summer’s eve, knowing my elected councillors were doing their job, looking after Gibsons. By following the rules, you too could have gotten home earlier to enjoy your deck and glass of wine instead of spending hours sitting in your chairs ignoring us. Sounds like a “Winn Winn” to me.

Judith Bonkoff, Gibsons