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Coun. Kasper’s silence deafening

Re: Bylaw zoning meeting turns nasty ( News , Oct. 10)
13908692_web1_180606-SNM-T-Letters

Re: Bylaw zoning meeting turns nasty (News, Oct. 10)

Coun. Rick Kasper is quoted by your paper as saying the District of Sooke official community plan was the “worst document (of its kind) that I’ve seen in 29 years of public office.” He went so far as to call it “a joke.”

My question to Mr. Kasper, elected in 2005, 2011, and 2014, where were you on these terms? Why do you speak about it now in the 11th hour nearing the election?

Sooke adopted its first OCP in 2001 and again in 2010, and despite Kasper knows of legal advice to make changes, he’s been silent on the issue.

District staff works for council. If there’s historical concerns around “the worst document seen,” why are we only hearing about it now? Why didn’t council demand action on it in the past four years?

This is to say nothing of the insult that has been leveled to the hundreds of hours given freely by community members in creating this vision document over the years, and now believing that he knows more than everyone else on what the OCP should be, or at least, not be.

All of this comes to light because of a map error in the OCP that apparently had the agriculture land zone bleeding into the neighboring lot. This issue was caught due to the illegal business operating on the lot, looking to now rezone to be allowed to continue operations.

There is a big difference between a small mapping error, and the consistency of our OCP.

Kasper has again confused the issues, and exposed district taxpayers to liability while insulting their work.

Derek Lewers

Sooke