Another insult to our democracy

Dear Editor:

Coun. Doug Holmes says that Coun. Richard Barkwill’s letter to the editor contains a lot of misinformation and there is an “orchestrated campaign in the community to sabotage this whole project and it has to stop” (Herald, June 9).

Why? Isn’t that what democracy is about? Where has consultation been in this process? It is of concern when a councillor does not want a land appraisal and wants the discussion to stop.

The location decision meeting was held behind closed doors and from a Freedom of Information document an email from former CAO Linda Tynan clearly tells staff members to “sell the site” to council. Another insult to democracy.

Council was given one day to make a decision. Why was that ? What is the driving force behind this whole project? Because there is grant money? Holmes in the past stated “there may indeed be other infrastructure projects that are more important for the community, but when the federal government hands out $6 million it isn’t interested in our priorities, it’s interested in its priorities. Our challenge on council, if we want to tap into those large federal infrastructure funds, is to identify projects that are important to all three levels of government.”

Simultaneously, a grant application for Giant's Head Road improvement was submitted and turned down. Did anyone from council even review the application and do a comparison between the two applications? They should have.

Much of the information on the website is intended to market the project.