Union Bay Improvement District meetings are no longer open to the public, as announced by UBID chair Alan de Jersey following an apparently raucous board meeting last month.
UBID trustees Bruce Livesey and Cleve Goldswain — both members of the Tax Payers for Accountable Governance (TAG) group — feel the decision is an “undemocratic action” that will exclude taxpayers from the decision-making process.
de Jersey, however, said business is difficult to conduct amidst a “mob atmosphere,” as he said was the case at the Dec. 15 trustee meeting.
“It’s a business meeting. If we’re not allowed to do business, then we’ve got no business meeting,” de Jersey said, noting the mood of the Dec. 15 session was marred by heckling from 50 or 60 attendees. “Cleve and Bruce, they take their opportunity to grandstand while they have all their supporters there.”
TAG members claim the neighbouring community of Deep Bay operates its improvement district at a third of the cost of the UBID, despite the similar size of the two communities. The group hopes to secure two more trustee seats at the next UBID AGM in the spring. Its nomination meeting is Jan. 25.
Goldswain and Livesey suspect the closure is in response to their request to the minister responsible for improvement districts to investigate the way the board has governed the UBID.
“We are concerned that closing regular meetings of the UBID to the public will allow the board to govern without public knowledge and scrutiny of their actions as elected officials,” Goldswain said in a news release. “We will attend all meetings of the UBID board, and we will respect confidentiality issues, but we will keep the public informed.”
de Jersey claims Goldswain and Livesey have breached confidentiality following in-camera sessions. However, because they are elected officials, they can be removed from office only by the electorate.
“It has to be decided at the ballot box, not in a court,” de Jersey said, noting municipal council and regional district guidelines differ from improvement districts and do not come under the same authorities.
“We have been told by our lawyers that they certainly appear to be in breach of their oath of office, but unfortunately there’s nothing we can do under the letter of the law. We really don’t know what they all want. It’s hard to figure it out. You can’t have services and fire departments without paying for it.”
Goldswain and Livesey said de Jersey has yet to provide information to support the breach-of-confidentiality claims.
They also claim about $20,000 of taxpayer money has been spent without formal motion among trustees.
“Minutes of regular board and in-camera meetings show no record of approval for these expenditures,” Goldswain said.
reporter@comoxvalleyrecord.com