October 18 2011 email to Board members
" ......I n a younger life I was a government auditor and in addition to the usual audit tests we spoke of the smell test. When we first approached CRD staff 8 months ago, all we asked was for the ditches to be cleaned at Island View Beach park. Had that simple task been done as required by the park bylaw you would never have heard from us, and we would all have had easier lives. Instead we were subjected by Park staff to arrogance, promises made and broken, delays and worse. The ditch clearing started today and we should be rejoicing (and we are!) but we can't help wondering why we have met with such resistance; why there seem to be so many inconsistencies; and why we can't get straight answers. Things have not been passing the smell test.
When Parks staff would not give us the survey report we had to make an FOI request, and even then there are delays when there shouldn't be, and silly things like providing us with a map printed so much smaller than the intended scale that the data on it is not readable. We made that request on August 25th and still we have not been provided with all the material we requested. And each time we got jacked around the smell seemed to get stronger so we looked deeper. Right now we are not getting any response to FOI requests we have made and we are about to file a complaint with the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner. One of the things we have asked for is the tenders for the survey work. The CRD procurement policy http://www.crd.bc.ca/business/opportunities/documents/procurement_policy.pdf is that work over $5,000 requires three written tenders, yet from the information we have so far it seems that no quotes were sought for this work. In fact it looks like the surveyor Park staff chose was not even given written instructions - it seems he was taken for a walk in the park and then he emailed in a "total ball park figure" of $3,700 to $4,000 which later became an invoice for over $11,000 plus taxes. The CRD is a public body funded by public tax dollars, and we expected a transparency that so far we have not seen."
When Parks staff would not give us the survey report we had to make an FOI request, and even then there are delays when there shouldn't be, and silly things like providing us with a map printed so much smaller than the intended scale that the data on it is not readable. We made that request on August 25th and still we have not been provided with all the material we requested. And each time we got jacked around the smell seemed to get stronger so we looked deeper. Right now we are not getting any response to FOI requests we have made and we are about to file a complaint with the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner. One of the things we have asked for is the tenders for the survey work. The CRD procurement policy http://www.crd.bc.ca/business/opportunities/documents/procurement_policy.pdf is that work over $5,000 requires three written tenders, yet from the information we have so far it seems that no quotes were sought for this work. In fact it looks like the surveyor Park staff chose was not even given written instructions - it seems he was taken for a walk in the park and then he emailed in a "total ball park figure" of $3,700 to $4,000 which later became an invoice for over $11,000 plus taxes. The CRD is a public body funded by public tax dollars, and we expected a transparency that so far we have not seen."
