The operation of CRD Parks
as it has related to Island View Beach
We have worked hard to ensure accuracy. If any of the information or its interpretation is known to be incorrect, please contact us by email directly so it may be corrected.
The duties of CRD staff are listed here
The concerns relating to Island View Beach
1. Was the involvement in the Cordova Strategy authorized?
In 2006 CRD staff began what became a 5 year project with the Tsawout that culminated in the publication in 2010 of the Cordova Conservation Strategy. This project was managed by CRD parks staff. No evidence has been shown that this 5 year commitment of staff or expenditure of $18,000 in CRD funds was approved by the CRD Board or was even known to the CRD Board A senior CRD board member stated that the first the Board knew of the Cordova Strategy was when it was "suddenly there" in 2011.
The Cordova Strategy had two core objectives that appear to be at the root of many of the actions by CRD park staff, yet these run counter to the stated policies of the CRD Board:
2. Not cleaning the drainage ditches
In 1936 a drainage ditch system was installed in what are now the park lands to control the mosquitoes. see here
The CRD bylaw for Island View Beach says: see here
Policies
(i) The CRD Parks Department will cooperate with the Municipality of Central Saanich in preparing a drainage plan for the park. The purpose of this plan is to identify ways of improving the drainage system for purposes of alleviating flooding of private lands and controlling mosquito breeding sites
(iii) The Regional Parks Department will keep all ditches in the park clear of debris. This will be included in the annual maintenance program.
In clear breach of this CRD policy, CRD staff did not clean the drainage ditches for something like 20 years up until 2011 when Central Saanich finally cleaned them. Over this time the ditches filled in; large bodies of standing water began forming; swarms of mosquitoes bred and ravaged the local community causing substantial cost in public funds for mosquito control measures - because CRD Parks staff would not clean the ditches.
These are some of the calls made on the CRD Parks staff to clean the drainage ditches as required by the CRD park bylaw:
Despite these repeated calls from residents quoting the CRD bylaw, Central Sannich Council, and even the CRD Regional Parks Committee itself, the CRD Parks Department did not do the work. Eventually in October 2011 the CRD Regional Parks Committee asked Central Saanich to clean the ditches on behalf of the CRD which they did.
In 2012 CRD Parks staff again ignored all calls to clean the park ditches north of the Lamont lateral which is where the mosquitoes are.
At its meeting on November 21, 2013, the Regional Parks Committee passed a resolution to "reconfirm the CRD commitments in the 1989 park management plan with respect to the maintenance of the drainage system in island View Park and the mosquito abatement program."
3. In 2011 CRD park staff engaged a surveyor at a cost of $13,045 see here. Although a Freedom of Information request was made for it in 2011, no evidence has been provided by CRD Parks to show that approval was obtained for this expenditure, or that the CRD Procurement policy was followed.
4. Information not presented to the Regional parks Committee
5. Accuracy of information put before the Regional Parks Committee.
1. 2011 - September 21 - senior CRD park staff made a series of inaccurate statements to the Regional Parks Committee as reasons why CRD Parks could not or should not clean the drainage ditches at Island View Beach See here
2. 2012 - June 18 - Park staff put before the Regional Parks Committee two pages from a report by Camosun students suggesting the drainage ditches were causing harm to the environment, but did not disclose they had been put on notice of serious flaws in the report, or that a CRD parks staffer had involvement with it. Instead they said they had not studied the report. see here
3. In 2013, Park staff put before the Parks Committee, and then before the full CRD Board, and then to the public, a draft management plan for Island View Beach containing errors of fact and misleading statements. See here
6. The staff duty to put all solutions before the Committee - the breach in the natural berm
Staff have a duty to put all solutions before the Committee (see here ). Speaking generally, the reason is obvious, for if staff in an organization do not put forward all solutions to their Board then they can manipulate their Board by putting forward just two solutions - one so outrageous that it must be rejected, and the other being the solution staff want. A typical "Yes Minister!" situation.
See here
7. Questionable and misleading statements to the public
1. In 2009 a provincial government researcher doing a report on island View Beach was led to believe from information given by CRD parks staff that the drainage ditches at Island View Beach had nothing to do with mosquito control, when in fact the sole reason those drainage ditches were installed was for mosquito control. see here
2. In January 2013, a public information session was held about Island View Beach. Information shown to the public was incomplete and inaccurate.
3. On April 8, 2013, senior CRD parks staff appeared before Central Saanich Council and claimed they had put in swales to drain the areas with standing water, and also had opened up the mini-berms that stopped the water from draining from the fields into the ditches. This caused Mayor Bryson (Chair of the CRD) to make a point of telling the Central Saanich Parks Committee how good it was that this drainage work was being carried on in the park by the CRD. When questioned later for details of the actual work, the CRD acknowledged that all they had done was to dig one shallow trench by hand, and in another place to pull out some weeds by hand. See here
4. As shown above, CRD staff put out a draft interim plan for the public to review in 2013. That draft had misleading statements that went to the core of the plan. The concern has to be raised - for a plan that was more than two years in the making, how could so many errors be made accidentally? see here
5. There is also concern that the 2013 draft plan was written in a manner that masked its true intent, in a way that the average member of the public would not be able to detect from even multiple readings if the draft. see here
8. The response forms - the final straw
There was a response form as part of the draft interim plan that CRD parks floated in 2013 . Only 77 response forms were completed and the CRD's consultant reported that the results were not statistically valid and no conclusions could be drawn from them. In addition a resident gave a number of other reasons why the response forms were meaningless - there was no control over how many forms a person completed, they were completed by people who had not read the draft plan, and so on. The Chair of the CRD Regional Parks Committee replied confirming this and saying " ... the findings cannot be represented as a poll result." See here
Despite this, CRD park staff have gone ahead and posted on the CRD web site, claims based on those response forms!
This screen capture was taken on March 12, 2014 from https://www.crd.bc.ca/plan/planning-other-initiatives/island-view-beach-management-plan This was still online at 7:20pm March 18 2014.
The duties of CRD staff are listed here
The concerns relating to Island View Beach
1. Was the involvement in the Cordova Strategy authorized?
In 2006 CRD staff began what became a 5 year project with the Tsawout that culminated in the publication in 2010 of the Cordova Conservation Strategy. This project was managed by CRD parks staff. No evidence has been shown that this 5 year commitment of staff or expenditure of $18,000 in CRD funds was approved by the CRD Board or was even known to the CRD Board A senior CRD board member stated that the first the Board knew of the Cordova Strategy was when it was "suddenly there" in 2011.
The Cordova Strategy had two core objectives that appear to be at the root of many of the actions by CRD park staff, yet these run counter to the stated policies of the CRD Board:
- removing the sea wall to allow flooding of Island View Beach; and
- filling in the drainage ditches in the park
2. Not cleaning the drainage ditches
In 1936 a drainage ditch system was installed in what are now the park lands to control the mosquitoes. see here
The CRD bylaw for Island View Beach says: see here
Policies
(i) The CRD Parks Department will cooperate with the Municipality of Central Saanich in preparing a drainage plan for the park. The purpose of this plan is to identify ways of improving the drainage system for purposes of alleviating flooding of private lands and controlling mosquito breeding sites
(iii) The Regional Parks Department will keep all ditches in the park clear of debris. This will be included in the annual maintenance program.
In clear breach of this CRD policy, CRD staff did not clean the drainage ditches for something like 20 years up until 2011 when Central Saanich finally cleaned them. Over this time the ditches filled in; large bodies of standing water began forming; swarms of mosquitoes bred and ravaged the local community causing substantial cost in public funds for mosquito control measures - because CRD Parks staff would not clean the ditches.
These are some of the calls made on the CRD Parks staff to clean the drainage ditches as required by the CRD park bylaw:
- 2008 November 24 letter from Central Saanich Council see here
- 2011 May 19 letter from a resident to the Park Planner see here
- 2011 June 2 Significant correspondence between a resident and the CRD see here
- 2011 June 2 The resident quotes the CRD park bylaw and calls for the ditches to be cleaned see here
- 2011 June 10 MLA and Mayor and residents meet CRD on site see here
- 2011 June 15 Regional Parks Committee ask Parks staff to clean ditches see here
- 2011 July 20 letter from Central Saanich Council see here
- 2011 July 20 800 signature public petition see here
- 2011 August 19 Resident letter to CRD "The arrogance and the lack of accountability; have been appalling" see here
- 2011 September 13 Resident letter to CRD "Please stop messing about and clean the ditches." see here
- 2011 September 20 letter from Central Saanich Council see here
- 2011 September 21 Direction from Regional parks Committee to Parks staff to clean the ditches see here
- 2011 October 3 Resolution by Central Saanich Council for the CRD to clean the ditches see here
- 2011 October 4 Resident letter to CRD CAO Daniels see here
- 2011 October 4 Committee letter to Regional Parks Committee that ditches not cleaned see here
- 2012 June 19 letter from Central Saanich Council to clean the ditches see here
Despite these repeated calls from residents quoting the CRD bylaw, Central Sannich Council, and even the CRD Regional Parks Committee itself, the CRD Parks Department did not do the work. Eventually in October 2011 the CRD Regional Parks Committee asked Central Saanich to clean the ditches on behalf of the CRD which they did.
In 2012 CRD Parks staff again ignored all calls to clean the park ditches north of the Lamont lateral which is where the mosquitoes are.
At its meeting on November 21, 2013, the Regional Parks Committee passed a resolution to "reconfirm the CRD commitments in the 1989 park management plan with respect to the maintenance of the drainage system in island View Park and the mosquito abatement program."
3. In 2011 CRD park staff engaged a surveyor at a cost of $13,045 see here. Although a Freedom of Information request was made for it in 2011, no evidence has been provided by CRD Parks to show that approval was obtained for this expenditure, or that the CRD Procurement policy was followed.
4. Information not presented to the Regional parks Committee
- On July 20, 2011 the Mayor of Central Saanich handed CRD Park staff a resolution from Central Saanich Council calling on the CRD to clean the drainage ditches at Island View Beach. This was not presented to the Regional Parks Committe. see here
- On July 20, 2011 the Mayor of Central Saanich handed CRD Park staff an 800 signature public petition to the CRD to clean the ditches. This was not presented to the Regional Parks Committee either. see here
5. Accuracy of information put before the Regional Parks Committee.
1. 2011 - September 21 - senior CRD park staff made a series of inaccurate statements to the Regional Parks Committee as reasons why CRD Parks could not or should not clean the drainage ditches at Island View Beach See here
2. 2012 - June 18 - Park staff put before the Regional Parks Committee two pages from a report by Camosun students suggesting the drainage ditches were causing harm to the environment, but did not disclose they had been put on notice of serious flaws in the report, or that a CRD parks staffer had involvement with it. Instead they said they had not studied the report. see here
3. In 2013, Park staff put before the Parks Committee, and then before the full CRD Board, and then to the public, a draft management plan for Island View Beach containing errors of fact and misleading statements. See here
6. The staff duty to put all solutions before the Committee - the breach in the natural berm
Staff have a duty to put all solutions before the Committee (see here ). Speaking generally, the reason is obvious, for if staff in an organization do not put forward all solutions to their Board then they can manipulate their Board by putting forward just two solutions - one so outrageous that it must be rejected, and the other being the solution staff want. A typical "Yes Minister!" situation.
See here
7. Questionable and misleading statements to the public
1. In 2009 a provincial government researcher doing a report on island View Beach was led to believe from information given by CRD parks staff that the drainage ditches at Island View Beach had nothing to do with mosquito control, when in fact the sole reason those drainage ditches were installed was for mosquito control. see here
2. In January 2013, a public information session was held about Island View Beach. Information shown to the public was incomplete and inaccurate.
- for comments on the display boards used by the CRD see here
- for comments on the event itself see here
3. On April 8, 2013, senior CRD parks staff appeared before Central Saanich Council and claimed they had put in swales to drain the areas with standing water, and also had opened up the mini-berms that stopped the water from draining from the fields into the ditches. This caused Mayor Bryson (Chair of the CRD) to make a point of telling the Central Saanich Parks Committee how good it was that this drainage work was being carried on in the park by the CRD. When questioned later for details of the actual work, the CRD acknowledged that all they had done was to dig one shallow trench by hand, and in another place to pull out some weeds by hand. See here
4. As shown above, CRD staff put out a draft interim plan for the public to review in 2013. That draft had misleading statements that went to the core of the plan. The concern has to be raised - for a plan that was more than two years in the making, how could so many errors be made accidentally? see here
5. There is also concern that the 2013 draft plan was written in a manner that masked its true intent, in a way that the average member of the public would not be able to detect from even multiple readings if the draft. see here
8. The response forms - the final straw
There was a response form as part of the draft interim plan that CRD parks floated in 2013 . Only 77 response forms were completed and the CRD's consultant reported that the results were not statistically valid and no conclusions could be drawn from them. In addition a resident gave a number of other reasons why the response forms were meaningless - there was no control over how many forms a person completed, they were completed by people who had not read the draft plan, and so on. The Chair of the CRD Regional Parks Committee replied confirming this and saying " ... the findings cannot be represented as a poll result." See here
Despite this, CRD park staff have gone ahead and posted on the CRD web site, claims based on those response forms!
This screen capture was taken on March 12, 2014 from https://www.crd.bc.ca/plan/planning-other-initiatives/island-view-beach-management-plan This was still online at 7:20pm March 18 2014.
So say again - who is running the CRD?
For several years now,every time we have complained to the CRD directors about the inaccuracies of the information and other issues with CRD parks, we have been asked to put it behind us and move on. This incident of CRD park staff posting these claims on the CRD web site in defiance of the direction from the Regional parks Committee was the last straw for us, and is why we are now going public with the information we have.
For several years now,every time we have complained to the CRD directors about the inaccuracies of the information and other issues with CRD parks, we have been asked to put it behind us and move on. This incident of CRD park staff posting these claims on the CRD web site in defiance of the direction from the Regional parks Committee was the last straw for us, and is why we are now going public with the information we have.