Re: Porter Creek “D"one deal
If you have lost faith and trust with current elected governments of all levels, don’t go to a City of Whitehorse council meeting. Although an overwhelming number of concerned citizens have spent time and efforts to express their views about development of Porter Creek D and the extension of Pine Road, we once again weren’t listened to.
Quantitative values supporting development were put forward, yet the majority of citizens opposing development were referred to as “many” or “some,” but not worth putting in numbers.
On Dec. 12, Coun. Florence Roberts insisted that the vote was only going into a planning and design phase, and that there would be plenty of opportunities for public inputs through YESAB.
As I expressed at the council meeting on Dec. 5, I don’t trust the current YESAB system as it mostly assesses the economic impacts and underestimates the environmental and social impacts. As a result, it always says “yes.”
I appreciated the effort of a few councillors to postpone the decision in order to restore public trust. Coun. Dave Stockdale stated that he was against postponing the process because the public doesn’t trust the government anyway.
The councillors against postponing were probably afraid that further public consultation would stop the project. They need the money from lot sales to transfer to other sectors of the city’s budget. One of the reasons against adding further public consultation was that the city had already a contract with HB Lanarc, and the city was reluctant to go back in negotiations with them. Don’t try to convince us that this wasn’t a done deal from the start!
Furthermore, in my opinion, Coun. Stockdale was being unacceptably disrespectful by referring to one of the delegate public member’s previous input on the backyard chickens debate as “playing with chickens.”
When approaching the vote, the public was leaving the room en masse in disgust because we knew that it was a done deal.
This is not only about the protection of McIntyre Creek, but about the value of public inputs in such consultation processes. We are given the opportunity to express views and opinions, but these are never taken into account.
Coun. Dave Stockdale, this is why the public has lost its trust in government.
Now home after this emotionally involved meeting and excluding a few good intended councillors, I say, “Shame on city council!”
Marie Boucher
Whitehorse