Online threat against mayor investigated
Feelings still high over five-storey development in Peachland
Peachland Mayor Cindy Fortin says the RCMP has investigated an online suggestion that someone should burn down her house.
The inflammatory comment was made on a Facebook site run by opponents of a council’s decision to approve a fivestorey building on Beach Avenue.
“The Peachland mayor is not for the people she’s for profit someone go light a fire to her house scum!” reads the message from a person using the name Janice Wyatt.
Fortin said Wednesday she was deeply unnerved by the posting, which she took as a threat, and called police.
“I have a really high tolerance for insults and abuse, but something like that crosses the line,” Fortin said. “It made me very nervous, and I did regard it as a threat to my family’s safety.”
The message was on the Friends of Beach Avenue Facebook group page for several weeks, although three other posters had immediately raised concerns about it.
Randey Brophy, one of the site’s administrators, took the post down Wednesday afternoon when contacted by The Daily Courier.
“Yes, it should have been deleted earlier,” Brophy said. “I was not aware the mayor had gone to the police and made an issue about this.”
Fortin said West Kelowna RCMP contacted the person who made the post, who lives in the Lower Mainland.
“My understanding from speaking to the police is that she apologized, and said it something she wrote just off the cuff without thinking too much,” Fortin said.
“Hearing that, I guess I don’t feel quite as alarmed as I did,” Fortin said. “But I don’t know when it became OK to make such terrible threats toward public officials. Who knows who might take them up on the idea?”
In his since deleted original response to the suggestion someone burn down Fortin’s house, Brophy wrote: “Nope, no violence. I know you are joking, but you have to understand that we are being blamed every time the wind blows in Peachland.
“We have never perpetrated or condoned any vandalism. We will go to the polls in October,” Brophy wrote.
Fortin provided The Daily Courier with the name of the West Kelowna RCMP member she dealt with and a file number, but police would not comment on the matter.
“I am unable to confirm/deny or comment to any possible investigations due to Privacy Act legislation,” Kelowna RCMP Const. Lesley Smith wrote in an email.
On Wednesday, Brophy said he thought Fortin was going public with her concerns about the post as a way of “deflecting” what he said was widespread community opposition to council’s approval of the Peachtree Village project.
On Tuesday night, Peachland town council gave final approval to the development, which includes a mix of retail shops, offices, and luxury suites.
Although it required a rewriting of the community plan, which set out a three storey limit on Beach Avenue, a majority of councillors said it was an attractive and sensitively-designed project that conformed to Peachland’s long-sought goal of attracting new development to the downtown.
Critics said it was simply too big for the street, would diminish the neighborhood’s appeal, and have threatened legal action against council’s decision.
More than 300 people attended a public hearing on the Peachtree Village proposal, and most of those who spoke were against the project.
“The people who were against this, they were certainly very vocal and well-organized,” Fortin said. “But honestly, by more than three to one, the people who actually speak to me in the community about this are glad to see the project go ahead.”