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Letter: Regional district’s neutrality questioned on South Shuswap incorporation

Writer argues CSRD hasn’t been objective during process
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As most folks in Sorrento and Blind Bay know, Columbia Shuswap Regional District board hearings respecting incorporation in the South Shuswap have terminated.

We currently await the consultant’s report and their recommendations, before proceeding to a referendum. Director Demenok recently stated this referendum and it’s outcome will be the, “most important decision to influence the future of the Blind Bay-Sorrento area for decades to come.”

I concur with that statement, but our director has also stated that their CSRD website is the only “bona fide source of information,” which I totally disagree with. In the Nov. 8 Salmon Arm Observer, Director Demenok wrote: “We have also selected the Incorporation Study Committee, a group of residents who have volunteered to serve their community as an objective, fact-finding and oversight body to ‘ensure’ that all stages of the study are conducted in a neutral and balanced fashion.”

Read more: Letter: South Shuswap incorporation a foregone conclusion?

Read more: Letter: Scrap South Shuswap incorporation study

I challenge the director to point out a single scrap of information published on their CSRD site, over the past six months, that has not been pro-incorporation. He was recently quoted in print as saying, “there are pros and cons to both options.” So why hasn’t a single ‘con’ been mentioned or discussed on the CSRD site? Will any of the many ‘cons’ be presented at upcoming community meetings, open houses and local media interviews?

Thankfully, there is Facebook and other websites, because to date the CSRD site has not been neutral, with the virtues of incorporation being extolled, even prior to release of the consultant’s report. One almost gets the impression that the CSRD started out with a predetermined goal, then conducted a follow-up hearing process in an attempt to justify the same. Objective? Neutral? You be the judge.

Ken Smith,

Blind Bay