Council has requested that a municipal staff member attend future Planning and Development Advisory Committee (PDAC) meetings to ensure that the facts presented by community members are in fact true.
This request was made during the Nov. 25 committee-of-the-whole meeting, after council caught wind of a claim that was made during a September public hearing. The claim was that the mayor and council supported the proposed project, despite the fact that that support had never been expressed.
“I think it’s really unethical for people to make that kind of a comment,” said Coun. Dwain Wacko, who made the request that someone from the municipality attend the meetings.
PDAC is a public advisory committee that is appointed by Parks Canada to advise the park superintendent on planning and development issues within Jasper National Park.
Wacko suggested that by having someone from the municipality attend the committee’s public hearings, it might prevent people from making false claims relating to the municipality and it would also give the municipality an opportunity to refute any comments that are untrue.
“If an untruth is presented, are we not obligated to correct it at a public hearing like that?” he asked.
Wacko also noted that, since council has an interest in land use, planning and development, it might be worth having someone there on those grounds, as well.
Mayor Richard Ireland agreed with Wacko, but noted that he doesn’t want to step on Parks Canada’s toes.
“We certainly don’t want to give Parks the impression that we’re trying to intrude on a process that is [theirs]. But if we just had [someone as] a watching brief to start with, we’d get a better sense of what’s going on and then we could maybe speak to Parks about how we might be involved in a slightly different capacity.”
Ireland suggested that it might be best to have a member of administration attend the hearings, rather than a representative of council, as administration has a better handle on the fine details of the municipality, like the location of utility lines, which might effect a development.
“We might be better served by an administrative person than a councillor. It’s one thing to say ‘council supports this’—a councillor will know whether or not that is so—but on the detailed issues we wouldn’t know, and I would think that staff would know.”
Following council’s discussion, Mark Fercho, the municipality’s chief administrative officer, volunteered to be the municipality’s representative, saying “I’m used to dealing with land use, planning and zoning.”
Nicole Veerman
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