Editor:
Re: MLA Redies wades into water issues, Dec. 27.
Although the coverage of controversial City of White Rock water issues is appreciated, I take offence at the lack of explanatory facts in the article regarding the highly pejorative sentence:
“Louis, a well-known council critic – particularly on water issues – has had frequently abrasive interactions with council members, and also city staff, during public meetings, and was escorted from council chambers by RCMP officers during a Sept. 12, 2016 meeting at the request of Baldwin.”
In fairness to myself, and in order to properly inform readers, in my view the writer was remiss in not stating that the 2016 “special” council meeting only occurred because of written threats from myself to White Rock council that I would sue the city in B.C. Supreme Court to obtain orders requiring council to redo their June 27, 2016 annual report meeting if council did not agree to:
1) Redo that meeting, where the city’s 2015 annual report was tabled and unanimously approved;
2) Allow members of the public that attend the redo meeting to ask questions, as per requirements of Sec. 99 of B.C.’s Community Charter Act; and,
3) Amend the city’s 2015 annual report so that it complies with B.C.’s Community Charter Act, which requires cities’ annual reports to contain a list of formal objectives, along with descriptions of measures that will be used to assess progress/lack of progress implementing each objective.
Also, at the “special” meeting where the mayor called the police to have me removed forcibly from the meeting (UBC hired for advice, Sept. 14, 2016):
• This occurred while I was in the middle of politely asking questions regarding city officials’ grievous negligence in not developing and not implementing an “arsenic and manganese public education and outreach program”;
• The mayor plainly did not like my questions and did not want to provide honest answers, so he had the police called to remove me from the meeting in a dictator-like attempt to silence me.
The facts around my expulsion by the police should have been included in the Dec. 27 article.
Please correct the above-referenced omissions in future articles/op-eds that are published.
Roderick V. Louis, White Rock
(City of White Rock video: Go to the 53:00-minute mark)