It's very troubling that Regional District of North
Okanagan bureaucrats are trying to circumvent public input on certain aspects of
the master water plan by having controversial issues not on agenda introduced as
late items during a public meeting. Doing this essentially means the public is
not allowed to prepare prior to the meeting. Also troubling is that you never
have an agenda item for "Questions From the Press and Public" at the end of
meetings.
I'm not very familiar with the justification and timeline
involved with raising Aberdeen dam, but this was one of the items recently
rejected by Vernon and district voters. With all the public pressure currently
being applied on you about many things, including peer review and investigation
of other water sources, RDNO staff seems quite disingenuous with their
report.
They seem to think that the referendum was defeated
because of a lack of Provincial grant funding. That may be the case for some
voters, but certainly not all. My mother and siblings voted no after careful
consideration and upon reflection of water rate increases imposed since the
Duteau treatment plant experiment started around twelve years ago. Others,
perhaps the majority, questioned the technical and environmental aspects of the
plan. Why is it so expensive, grants or not? Why is it so limited in scope?
What is the resulting carbon footprint? Why would you forge ahead with any
aspect of this MWP without first determining the direction your ratepayers
actually want you to go?
Also attached are some thoughts on the meter reading aspects of this late item
report.
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