I promise this newsletter has some cheeful winter things
The city promises to do better. The RCMP promises to do better.
Happy Tuesday. I hope you had a restful Family Day great time shoveling the driveway every two hours. I checked out WinterFest on Saturday:
And, if you’re looking for a good way to show your southern friends how quickly the snow is falling, here’s a timelapse video that does it for you.
And the waxwings are out in full force:
There’s some more good winter content later in this letter but first, the news.
The city promises to do better after selling land public land without due public notice
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a council meeting in which the city discussed the sale of land at 4500 Ospika to a developer proposing student housing. A community group, Ginter’s Green Forever, had questions about whether due process had been followed and there was a whole exchange in which city staff said yes, in fact, they had followed all the rules when it came to selling that land.
Which, oops, they hadn’t.
There’s a truism within the world of politics that you want to drop bad news on a Friday afternoon because, presumably, fewer people will notice. Whether the city was following that advice on purpose or not, it was Friday afternoon when they put out a notice saying, essentially, “we messed up”:
City Hall’s recent review of the property’s land sale file found the previous Administration failed to follow Community Charter regulations. Under the Charter’s Section 26 provisions, municipalities must issue a public notice before disposing public land or improvements.
“City administration and Council take this matter very seriously,” said Adam Davey, acting city manager. “At the time of the property sale, taking out an ad in the newspaper was a legislative requirement. Failing to do so makes the process less transparent to our citizens and erodes the public trust. We are taking immediate steps to improve our processes as that trust is extremely important to all of us.”
OK, well, this is less “we messed up” and more “the old guys messed up” but I’m a little unclear about who “the previous administration” is since Adam Davey, who is acting city manager, and Walter Babicz, who is city manager, were both at city hall back in ye olden days of 2020. I guess they could be blaming this one on predecessor Kathleen Soltis who resigned in September 2020 after other issues at city hall (not that anyone would ever confirm that’s why she left). Nevertheless:
“Upon discovering the administrative oversight, the City took immediate remedial action, including undergoing a restructuring and rebuilding of the City’s real estate division to better support the Administration’s continued dedication to its public responsibilities under all provincial legislation and its intention to provide fully transparent and accountable processes.”
In the end, I’m not sure it’s particularly likely this would have changed the outcome since everyone at the council table is pretty supportive of this land being turned into student housing, and the majority of this current council is the majority of the previous council. Still:
The RCMP promises to do better after failing to investigate allegations its officers were harassing Indigenous girls:
In a followup to Toronto Star and Vancouver Sun investigations into the alleged mistreatment of Indidgenous girls by RCMP officers in Prince George in the 90s that were then not duly investigated, APTN reports that outgoing commissioner Brenda Lucki says something is being done:
“The investigation is active and being led by my RCMP colleagues in British Columbia,” she wrote.
“The investigation is adequately resourced and progressing. To protect the integrity of ongoing inquiries, it would be inappropriate for me to comment further.”
Other news:
A new McDonald’s is set to open near DP Todd Secondary, and the people who live between the fast food restaurant and the high school would like some garbage cans to be installed along the way.
While many communities struggle to attract family doctors, Mackenzie has (nearly) enough. Here’s how they did it.
Local historian/writer Bev Christiansen has a new novel based on the early days of sawmills in the city.
Valemount is looking to expand the number of tourists coming to the Robson Valley.
Those good winter posts:
Here are some things I’ve come across that I like:
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