The City of Vernon is looking to fill vacancies on a controversial committee. Three members of the former Vernon Land Corporation refused to continue on with their duties when council shifted the organization to a committee structure. “They didn’t like the new terms of reference,” said Mayor Wayne Lippert. Michael Tindall was among those who didn’t apply to move from the corporation to the committee. “It became an advisory committee (to council) instead of an action corporation,” he said of the previous activities of negotiating land purchases and sales. Both the corporation and committee came under
scrutiny because of honourariums paid to directors. Such payments were offered under the former council but the previous council decided to do away with them. Tindall says he sits on a number of volunteer boards and a lack of honourarium didn’t play a role in his decision. Tindall also insists that he didn’t voluntarily abandon his duties. “We were all actually fired,” he said of the city’s decision to move from a corporation to a committee. The other directors who left are Pat Lett and Larry Rivard. Lett would not comment on the matter while Rivard could not be reached. That leaves only chairman Jack Borden and Richard Hamilton as original corporation members who moved to the committee. “The corporation wa disbanded and as a consequence, all of the directors were terminated. Council gave the directors an opportunity to apply to the committee and only two chose to do that,” said Borden. While the committee is more firmly controlled by council, Borden believes it can be effective. “The format is different but we still have a job to do,” he said. That view is shared by Hamilton. “There are projects and ideas on the go that are worth following up on,” he said. The city is currently looking to fill the vacancies on the committee.
It was decided Monday to reduce public representation on the committee from five to four, with a councillor now part of that group
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