City staff have continued to show their disdain for the residents of Sumas Mountain by delaying the release of crucial documents relating to the notorious Sumas Mountain Environmental Management Plan, despite Bill MacGregor's commitment to us on July 31st that all our requests for information would be answered prior to last month's meeting at Straiton Hall on September 11th.
It has now been 4 months since we submitted our Freedom of Information request relating to the Sumas Mountain Environmental Management Plan --- an astonishingly bold assault on the property rights of Sumas Mountain property owners.
We had initially asked the City for the information back on June 6th. It was evident that the City would NOT release all documentation unless we forced it to, which we did by launching an official Freedom of Information request.
The City went into "damage control" mode and tried to derail our FOI request, first by asking us to drop the request (which we refused to do), and then imposing an unjust $800 fee on our application. Nevertheless, we persevered.
The City was legally required to provide the information within 30 days. They failed to meet this deadline, saying they needed an extension. A new deadline was set, this time to 60 days.
But when the 60 day mark came around, they failed again. So this time they appealed to the Provincial privacy commissioner, and requested a second extension, claiming they simply hadn't been able to get all the documentation together yet.
The privacy commissioner granted their request, but firmly stated "With this in mind and upon careful review of the information provided, I find that the City has provided sufficient evidence to grant a 19 day time extension on the basis of section 10(1)(b) of FIPPA... The new deadline (is) October 3rd, 2012."
Well, October 3rd came and went, and in an alarming display of ineptitude and arrogance, City staff blatantly disregarded the ultimatum, only providing us with a small portion of the documentation which the privacy commissioner had required them to give us.
We have also learned that the City has now gone back to the Provincial privacy commissioner and requested yet another extension.
It is now obvious that the City is stonewalling our requests. If the City had truly intended to be "transparent" with us, as Mayor Banman and Councilor MacGregor pledged to do in our Straiton Hall meeting of July 31st, then they would have provided full disclosure in a timely manner, would not have forced us to go through a formal FOI request, would not have imposed an $800 fee on our application, and would not have delayed the release with three successive deadline extensions.
But the stakes are high, and the City knows it. The private property of Mountain residents has been directly targeted by City Hall's Sumas Mountain Environmental Management Plan.
Despite the promises of the Mayor and Councilor MacGregor, we have not had our questions answered, have not been given the details we've requested, and have not been granted access to the key documents surrounding the odious "Plan".
At this point, it is difficult for us to come to any other conclusion than the City is intentionally keeping residents in the dark about its true intentions relating to Sumas Mountain. As the Sumas Mountain Rural Property Owners Association (SMRPOA) continues to force the City's hand on this issue, we will publish whatever relevant documents we are able to obtain. Please stand with us in the battle to protect our property rights --- we need your help.
