A group of Peninsula residents are wondering why emails sent to White Rock city staff and elected officials have not reached their intended recipients, much to the surprise of several council members.
Four residents contacted Peace Arch News with concerns about “delivery status notification” messages they had received in response to emails sent over the weekend to members of council and senior staff, indicating their messages had not been successfully sent.
Dennis Lypka – a former White Rock resident and council critic who now lives in South Surrey – told PAN he became suspicious that his emails were being blocked after receiving several such auto-replies Sunday morning. He said when he tried re-sending the messages via his wife’s email account, he did not receive a notification.
Garry Wolgemuth – another frequent council critic – tried to send test emails Monday morning to all of council and five senior staff members, and received failed delivery notices for all of them.
Wolgemuth said he believes the city is trying to “shut down input from the public.”
“They have been attacking our Charter of Rights and Freedoms aggressively since the election term…They refuse to allow democratic processes and we are responding to that.”
Resident Roderick Louis also received several failed-delivery notifications from attempted correspondence with council members and staff over the weekend. Last week, Louis said phone calls to White Rock City Hall from his unlisted phone number were also blocked.
Louis told PAN via email Monday the city’s “infantile” blocking of correspondence is “characteristic of practices one would expect to find in the Korean Peninsula – north part – not the Semiahmoo Peninsula.”
Resident Ross Buchanan also received auto-returned emails, suspecting his messages were being blocked.
Word of the apparent blocked messages came as a surprise to many on council, who told PAN they were not aware of how or why correspondence would be obstructed.
Coun. Lynne Sinclair said she received an email Monday from a resident asking why others had been blocked, and said that was the first she had heard of it.
“I actually hope that it’s not true, because I would expect that I would be given a choice, that it wouldn’t be something institutionalized,” Sinclair said, wondering if a glitch in the city’s system could be to blame.
Coun. Grant Meyer also said he was unaware of any residents’ email addresses being blocked.
“We get emails from people we don’t agree with, but I still read them and I go through them,” Meyer said. “I don’t think they should be blocked without our knowledge.”
Coun. David Chesney echoed Meyer’s sentiment.
“I think it’s up to each councillor to make this decision,” Chesney said, noting that since his term began a year-and-a-half ago, he had received some “very threatening” emails, which he reported to police and subsequently blocked the senders.
“I don’t like the idea that the city has taken it upon themselves without any consultation to blanket block all of us without any discussion.”
Coun. Bill Lawrence said he was unaware of the issue, but that he planned to “take a look into it.”
While Lawrence said it is “not a good thing to have anything blocked,” he acknowledged instances of emails that he described as “hitting the fringe” of racist, sexist or derogatory content.
“You want to make sure that you have the ability to reach council and the city,” Lawrence said. “However, when that level of accessibility includes something that’s on the illegal side of things, then there’s a merit for (blocking).”
Mayor Wayne Baldwin could not be reached by phone, however, said by email late Monday that he understood the problem had been resolved, “and all emails should be able to be sent and received.”