FOR THE RECORD

SOME OF THE LINKS ARE BROKEN AND I AM FINDING NEW ONES .



Friday, November 18. 2005
FOR THE RECORD
I went and saw Kay Stamboulieh's film, 'Vernon Under Siege' at the Vernon Auditorium last night. It was well produced and provocative but extremely fair. It basically suggested that the developers in our city had highjacked the agenda.
I was especially interested when the movie brought up the matter of the $2.3 million in DCC'S and stated that Sean Harvey had convinced the council to switch their previous decision of one week earlier costing the taxpayers $2,300,000 and only 2 councillors had resisted this decision. As I remember, the camera had panned to a picture of the council chambers and showed the faces of those two councillors who had stood their ground, namely Barry Beardsell and Jim MacGillivray.
This set of facts was correct but in the interests of accuracy Coun. Patrick Nichol was absent during the second vote and when I asked him afterwards back in October of this year he assured me that he would have resisted and reconfirmed his first vote, i.e no extension of the deadline. As that second vote was 4-2 to extend, his vote wouldn't have made the difference.
Greg Armour had been recognized earlier in the evening and had received a standing ovation and rightfully so. After the Screening the people from the audience took to the mikes to express their concerns and solutions and beefs. Most were constructive and informative and the responses that were attempted by some of the candidates present who chose to speak were supportive of changing how City Hall served the people.
Some of the crowd took the opportunity to take some verbal potshots at the incumbents and since Barry Beardsell was the only councillor present he was "slagged " by some audience members. It was suggested that it was his job as the self appointed watchdog to catch all the financial wrongdoings, raise the flags, complain loudly on the steps of city hall and even call in the cops.
I had stood up at the first forum at the Shubert centre and defended Mr. Beardsell and was the first candidate to publicly bring up the details of the $2.3 million DCC fiasco and and mentioned it again at the Arts Center Forum and I thought that was enough. I was silent.
I should have stood up and told the crowd some of the facts about the going ons at City Hall and the interconnections that brought us to the point where a citizen Greg Armour was forced to fight City Hall and achieved success only when he got the "right" media's attention.
This is the speech I should have given, (most of which was and still is available in many sections of my blogsite.)( I will try to keep it short and concise and provide some links to the point I am making.)
When the downtown revite was first proposed in 2001 (I believe) there was a meeting for the public and specified area owners and I asked the following question to Mayor Harvey (as a reporter stood beside the mayor writing on his always present pad.).
"As the taxpayers don't have a right of counter-petition, if I persuade the owners to turn down this idea will not that save $600,000 and help reduce the residential tax load? "
"Bob, you know that if that happens we'll find a way to spend that money. "
When that meeting was reported in the "newspaper" no mention was made of that flippant remark. For me, that day foreshadowed one man's regard for my tax money and the "reporting" style of that newspaper.
Anderson sub division: Jan 2003-Aug 2004
Most of the background can be found at TIME LINE RE ANDERSON SUBDIVISION BYLAW # 4739 . This link shows you the details and the various sections of the municipal act that were violated. I asked for a section 330 investigation of this matter in Nov. of 2003 and it took 2 lawyers and a set of accountants 7 long months until August 4 of 2004 before the report came back. http://vernonblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_vernonblog_archive.html)
and the quote from Sean Harvey "It was an expensive opinion but it's important when doing the public's business to do it in a transparent and open fashion," said Harvey. The only councillor raising shit about this use of taxpayers money was Barry Beardsell. His initial reaction is best found in the minutes of http://www.vernon.ca/council/documents/2003/minutes_031110.doc where Beardsell stated his opposition to this use of taxpayer money without regard to their consent. Later on when the whitewash report of my 330 complaint came out he once again spoke out about his opposition to its findings. Barry pursued it up to the Provincial government level and both of us exchanged letters with this level of government who refused to step in.
The MORNING STAR on at least 2 times was given the TIME LINE RE ANDERSON SUBDIVISION BYLAW # 4739 in writing and I also brought it up at the 2004 budget meeting until I was ruled out of order.If the incompetence of the City Administrator who is the legal guidedog for council had been put under public scrutiny we might not be debating today why his contact was renewed.
Beardsell and Spiers went internal and the local Newspaper ignored the story.
The $2.3 million DCC Fiasco:
The timeline for this nightmare can be found at Don Quixote presented the cost of slot machines to the Vernon Community The basis facts are that at the Dec 13/ 2004 meeting the council voted 5-1 to put the new DCC rates in effect. (this was 7 months after the developers had an input meeting about these rates on May 10/04). Mr Harvey was absent at this meeting and called a special meeting at 8 AM on Dec 20 and (with Councillor Nichol now absent) had the implementation date changed to March 1/2005. This was carried by a 4-2 vote with only Councillors Beardsell and MacGillivray opposed.
Beardsell demanded a report from staff of the cost to the taxpayer of this vote and a staff report was published on March 2/ 2005 and is available to the public. I published comment about this in my article The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight. DCC RATES IN EFFECT OR NOT???. I made this known to the local newspaper but they chose to ignore it.
Later on after I got hold of this report I used it in October to chastise the council about their right to make any decisions until after the election and with reporters from both newspapers present detailed the facts about the $2.3 million. Neither newspaper picked up on this story but the Daily courier published my letter in which I outlined the details. (The Morningstar has yet to publish this letter.)
I mentioned both the Anderson and the DCC $2.3 million at the first public forum at the Shubert centre and the Morningstar's comment was :Vernon Morning Star P.A10 Friday Oct. 28: Bob Spiers called for the city to take a tougher stand with developers and not to provide them with financial support. "there's been a couple of (questionable) decisions of council," he said
The The Daily Courier P.1 Friday Oct. 28: The topic of the charges was also on the minds of another prospective councillor with Bob Spiers suggesting the charges have cost city taxpayers $2.3 million as developers saved money after former mayor Sean Harvey called a special meeting of council and delayed the then-increases to development cost charges. The courier also did a detailed story on Page 1 entitled 'Watch dog' tells how city lost millions. at http://vernonblog.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_vernonblog_archive.html
Beardsell and Spiers went internal and the predominate local Newspaper ignored the story.
Conflict of Interest:
View the Media Release and Report from Lidstone, Young, Anderson Barristers and Solicitors. http://vernonblog.com/exit.php?url=aHR0cDovL3d3dy52ZXJub24uY2Evd2hhdHNuZXcvZG9jcy9wcjA1MDUwNS5wZGY=&entry_id=1072
This report that dragged on for many months was initiated by Mr Greg Armour and you can judge the result by looking at the report. Once again somebody had gone the internal route.
Expense Account Allegations:
Mr Armour did show these receipts to Mr Beardsell and was told to run with them. Internal procedures and looking to the local press had failed before. If this had gone internal again it would have moved into in-camera and the house cleaning that happened might have been just a dream.

Mr Armour and an investigative CHBC reporter set the proper wheels in motion and the world unfolded as it should. They are to be commended
However don't look to one watchdog councillor to be the one asleep on the job, look instead at the local "newspaper".
That paper is free. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.