Time To Put The Past Behind Us And Move On
The Citizen
Friday, February 01, 2013
With the process now underway to sell off the property that was bought in anticipation of building the now-defunct Eco Depot in the South End, we hope civility can reign.
The fight over the Eco Depot got ugly.
Very, very ugly. Lines were drawn between the Cowichan Valley Regional District and a group of residents passionately against the plan.
There were angry words and letters and even vandalism.
A lawsuit added to the swirling miasma of mistrust and adversarial relationships. A slate of anti-Eco Depot candidates ran in the last municipal elections.
We don’t want to get into finger pointing, or mired in details about who did what, when, where and who was right or wrong.
Clearly, however, communication and cooperation between the CVRD and the public broke down.
For some, there is still a residual bitterness.
Our hope is that these folks, who are obviously involved and interested in the future of their community, don’t allow that to colour their participation in what comes next.
If nothing else, the Eco Depot fight showed how deeply people care about the neighbourhood and community.
In a time when all too often apathy rules the day, folks were willing to take action.
That’s a very positive thing, one that can be a huge boon to the area as it moves into the future.
With this latest step, the CVRD is attempting to, in good faith, rectify what many opponents found to be the largest issue in the Eco Depot mess: a lack of public consultation and transparency.
Right from the get-go the CVRD is asking the public what it wants in terms of disposal of the property in question. The first meeting on the subject is set for Feb. 4 (for more details see our Wednesday, Jan. 30 edition).
We are intrigued to hear what the CVRD’s suggestions are, and we hope everyone else is too.
We’re also interested to hear if there are other suggestions from the public.
It’s time to put the animosity to rest and move forward as a community.
As with anything, we know there will be differing opinions on what option should be taken. Universal agreement is well nigh impossible on any project.
But we do hope that discussions can, this time, avoid the precipitous descent into bad feeling and anger.
This subject has marred the collective community long enough.
Now is the time to ensure that something good can come out of it.
So let’s leave the past where it belongs and turn our eyes towards the future, ready to work together.
© Cowichan Valley Citizen 2013
Richard Hughes-Political Blogger
Opinions are great and everybody has them but this Cowichan Citizen editorial shows a lack of ‘getting it’ that is shocking for a newspaper purporting to reflect activities and affairs of the community. It reads more like a revisionist PR release for the CVRD.
Your editorial stated that “We don’t want to get into finger pointing, or mired in details about who did what, when, where and who was right or wrong.”
Oh really. Isn’t that what reporters and editors do, or should do?
Why the biased attack the against community residents that dared to stand up against a corrupted process and illegal actions of the CVRD over their badly botched effort to build a Garbage Transfer and Recycling Drop Off on farmland in South Cowichan’s rural Cameron Taggart community?
Their efforts should be applauded not ridiculed.
How do you think your editorial opinion would stand up in a real two way debate and discussion?
It is editorials like this that clearly demonstrate that ‘Editorials’ should be signed off as to the writer or writers and not left for us to wonder whose opinions we are reading. Letters to the editor must be signed, so should editorials. Even when they are revisionist and ugly!
Loading ...
I agree. When I read that I thought WTH . I thought the “opinions” section was usually letters sent in by readers. CVRD need to be held accountable regardless how many months pass us by.
I heard some radio coverage on this, the premise was entirely based on how this effort was all about “recouping the 1.3 million dollars” the CVRD incurred in establishing the project.
It was relatively middle of the road and presented as “unbiased” yet it reflected a terrible bias in that it somehow left one with the impression that the hundreds of thousands spent in trying to slam dunk this thing was a normal course of events and somehow CVRD was on the hook for something out of their power.
A very strange and disturbing, revisionist history as you suggest. Maybe the CVRD should establish policy outlining how, what, where with whom and why they can authorize self serving propaganda campaigns for ill conceived notions.
I agree with this. The liberal driven citizen should reflect on its name and remember who it serves.
The citizens are concerned not about the past but the lesson we learned about the existing CVRD directors driven by civil servants advice and just how far astray they are willing to go to accomplish the agenda of a senior director from Cobble Hill.
As citizens we expect elected people to represent our wishes and listen to our concerns — never in history has there been a message so clearly sent as that which this council sent fighting our community.
Led by ms Giles and politicaally directed senior staff there was no financial limit as to what they would spend to fight us and also there was no limit to the published assasniations of regular people in our community’s reputations if they were a part of what the CVRD felt were “subservisive organazitions”
This was our representatives using our tax dollars to force their personal agenda’s on us.
We as a community have learned our lesson and now we are very wary of anything represented by this group at the CVRD.
Getting on with the future means watching every item this Regional Board does every day. We are aware of the “no limits” in morality and honesty that they will stoop to to fulfil their agenda’s at our expense.
The future, until the next election, is one of vigilance if we wish to preserve our community and not have it turn into someone’s vision of their own agenda. This is our community and we are the ones who will ultimately decide if and when it changes. Thank God for those who stood up and fought this kind of corruption. Good for them and please do not stop now that we know clearly what we are dealing with.
Larry Woodruff
Shawnigan