Residents unhappy with how the District of Mission is conducting its business will rally outside city hall at 6 p.m. Monday before the regular council meeting at 6:30 p.m.
Mission resident Larry Newell, who has been helping residents fight controversial inspections aimed at curbing marijuana grow-operations, is helping organize the rally because of “the way they [Mission council] have been treating the general public.
“They don’t listen,” said Newell, who knows something about how business should be conducted after serving as Mission’s director of inspection services before retiring.
“The general populace supports what they were trying to do, but not the manner they did it.” said Newel, who thinks the bylaw was flawed from the beginning by a lack of checks-and-balances, as well as the lack of an appeal process.
“People are P-ed off,” he added. “It’s not just the grow-op situation we’re dealing with.”
The municipality created a bylaw aimed at curbing grow ops by charging an inspection fee for homes suspected of housing marijuana grow-operations.
Homes were targeted because of high hydro usage and the fees could be as much as $10,000 – even when no grow ops were proven to have existed.
Residents responded with a class-action lawsuit to recover the “˜inspection’ fees. When news of what was being discussed at in-camera council meetings about the situation came out, the computers of former councillor Ron Taylor and current councillor Jenny Stevens were seized last week by RCMP as part of an investigation of breach of trust by a public official.
Stevens, who is blind, got one of her two computers returned the day after it was seized and is back to using it for council business.
But she’s still worried about potentially facing charges.
“I just want this whole thing sorted out,” she said.
But Taylor doesn’t have any of his three computers back and it’s impeding his ability to work.
He’s also concerned about his personal situation because he was using the computers for health consultations.
“I have to make decisions,” said Taylor. “So I’m pretty ticked off.”
While not an organizer of the rally, he understands residents want “to demonstrate to council general unhappiness with what has happened.
“I’ve had literally scores of phone calls from people saying “˜How can we help?’”
What is particularly galling for Taylor is that the image of his hard drives that the police have to make is something that would take less than a day.
“It’s now been a week,” he said.
“They [police] said it could be a week, it could be several weeks.”
Stevens’ computer was apparently more of a priority.
“It’s a political vendetta,” contended Newell,
Mission Mayor James Atebe did not return a request for an interview.
Mission is only inspecting properties now after the RCMP confirm there has been a grow-op. A review of the bylaw is expected to be complete in June.
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