Council meeting gets too lively; police called
Police were summoned to a boisterous Peachland town council meeting to ensure order was maintained, Mayor Cindy Fortin says.
Two RCMP members were positioned at each entrance to the public gallery as council members considered a controversial plan to rewrite a few words in the official community plan.
“People were shouting and hurling insults and refusing to obey the fire chief’s order that there were too many people in the room and that some of them would have to leave,” Fortin said Wednesday.
“We thought just to keep the peace, we better call the RCMP,” Fortin said. “We didn’t want to see things escalate to a dangerous situation.”
But critics of council say it wasn’t necessary for town officials to call in the police.
“I think it was an attempt by them to portray those of us who are against what they’re doing as an unruly mob, which we certainly are not,” said Randey Brophy of Friends of Beach Avenue.
“There’s a groundswell of opposition in Peachland, and council should certainly have anticipated a large turnout and arranged to hold the meeting in a bigger room,” Brophy said.
More than 100 people showed up at Tuesday’s meeting, more than the public gallery can hold. Town staff set up a video link in a nearby room to accommodate some people, but others refused to leave the gallery.
“They just kept yelling for us to shut the meeting down. Well, we’re not going to do that,” Fortin said. “It was one of the worst meetings we’ve ever had in Peachland, really a black mark on the town.”
Police were called by town staff just before 7:30 p.m.
“RCMP had a uniform presence at the public town council meeting in order to keep the peace,” RCMP Cpl. Jesse O’Donaghey wrote in an emailed statement.
Last July, council approved a five-storey residential and commercial building called Peachtree Village on Beach Avenue. The decision has been controversial, with nearly 1,000 people signing a petition asking the matter be reconsidered.
Critics say five storeys is too big for Beach Avenue and point out the town’s official community plan calls for three-storey buildings on the road. A legal challenge has been launched.
In response, town council is proposing to rewrite a portion of the OCP to say the town will seek to “encourage” a three-storey height maximum rather than “establish” such an upper limit.