in 2012 some Camosun students as part of a school project did a study at island View Beach.
The students were assisted in part by a CRD Parks staffer. The report contained some fundamental errors that went to the heart of the findings which favoured filling in the drainage ditches.
An area resident sensed that CRD Parks staff would try to introduce the report to the CRD Regional parks Committee because it favoured filling in the drainage ditches, so he emailed the senior parks staff and put them on notice of the errors and told them that because of the errors the report should not be put before the Regional Parks Committee.
The resident attended the Regional Parks Committee meeting on July 18 2012 and was told by staff they intended to give the report to the Committee members "because it was in the public domain". The resident protested to the Committee Chair that this was outrageous given that the staff had notice of the errors in the report. The Committee Chair would not overrule staff, and staff presented to the executive summary and another page to the Committee saying they had "not checked it". Staff did not inform the Regional Parks Committee they had been put on notice of the specific errors in the report, or that a CRD parks staffer had assisted in it. The lack of disclosure was made worse by staff only giving the two pages because that denied any Committee member who knew the park from reading the report and finding the errors.
When the resident protested further to the Committee Chair, he was told that the Committee members would probably not read the report pages anyway. But that is not the issue. The issue is that the parks staff had been put on notice of the errors, and told exactly what they were, and these were easily confirmed by anyone with knowledge of the park.
An area resident sensed that CRD Parks staff would try to introduce the report to the CRD Regional parks Committee because it favoured filling in the drainage ditches, so he emailed the senior parks staff and put them on notice of the errors and told them that because of the errors the report should not be put before the Regional Parks Committee.
The resident attended the Regional Parks Committee meeting on July 18 2012 and was told by staff they intended to give the report to the Committee members "because it was in the public domain". The resident protested to the Committee Chair that this was outrageous given that the staff had notice of the errors in the report. The Committee Chair would not overrule staff, and staff presented to the executive summary and another page to the Committee saying they had "not checked it". Staff did not inform the Regional Parks Committee they had been put on notice of the specific errors in the report, or that a CRD parks staffer had assisted in it. The lack of disclosure was made worse by staff only giving the two pages because that denied any Committee member who knew the park from reading the report and finding the errors.
When the resident protested further to the Committee Chair, he was told that the Committee members would probably not read the report pages anyway. But that is not the issue. The issue is that the parks staff had been put on notice of the errors, and told exactly what they were, and these were easily confirmed by anyone with knowledge of the park.
- Having been put on notice of the errors, staff had a duty to check before giving it to the Committee, but they said they did not. Why not?
- What was the motive of staff for presenting the extracts from this report to the Committee without checking it?
- Why didn't they disclose to the Committee they had been put on notice about errors?
- Why did they withhold the balance of the report that would have enabled someone with knowledge of the park to have seen the errors?
- Why did they not disclose that a CRD Parks staff member had been associated with the report?
