At Merritt’s city council meeting on April 9, Coun. Alastair Murdoch brought forward a notice of motion expressing concern about a letter from March 19 sent by the city to Anoop Sekhon, president of Tourism Nicola Valley (TNV). Murdoch said the letter, endorsed by Mayor Susan Roline, differed from the direction council provided at a council meeting on Jan. 8. A separate notice of motion from Coun. Murdoch expressed that council, without the mayor, would form a committee to appoint a liaison for TNV. The vote for the notice passed by a narrow margin.
Sekhon is hopeful that council’s decision will mean the TNV will be working with the city again.
“We’re glad that council basically affirmed they would support the original decision which was the correct decision,” said Sekhon. “We hope that this will basically provide an open transparent avenue between our group and the mayor and council. From here on, we hope that we can work together in a cohesive manner with TNV, City of Merritt and TOTA (Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association), and we can come up with a plan of attack for marketing the city of Merritt and the surrounding area.”
Sekhon said it’s unfortunate the TNV has been brought into the middle of a dispute between the mayor and council.
“There’s a lot of turmoil in the city,” he said. “Our group has just been pulled into it and I don’t think we should’ve been. I thought our situation was over on Jan. 8 when the motion was laid and passed to have council liaise with us. I though it was done, but I guess not.”
Roline said the bickering at council has gone too far.
Roline said the conflicts are creating other problems such as consuming staff’s time which means other things get pushed aside.
“They’re letting that private interest influence their decisions,” she said. “On Tuesday (April 9), they were making illegal motions and making statements that we can just change the bylaws if they don’t fit what we want to do.”
Any decision on liaisons will have to wait for a resolution between the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) and the province.
“The majority of council are not happy with the mayor more or less, in our opinion, going in a different direction than council decided upon and actually sending emails to all kinds of people saying this was the direction we were going in,” said Coun. Alastair Murdoch. “In my opinion, and the majority of council’s opinions, that’s not her decision. She can’t just decide she doesn’t like what council is doing and do her own thing. She’s taking a lot of responsibility on herself which she doesn’t have the right to do. She’s acting as if she’s the only member of council.”
Fellow councillor Dave Baker says the whole situation has been blown out of proportion.
“It’s a lot of misunderstandings,” he said. “When people don’t sit down together and talk about issues and just fire emails back and forth, things get taken out of context. That’s exactly what’s happened here. If we were to sit down as a group or even a few of us, whatever the case may be, I’m sure we could hammer this out.”
At the council meeting, Baker suggested that if councillors can’t officially be appointed to any committees, they can still attend unofficially.
“If groups want a representative – obviously, they know which councillor they want to attend their meetings – just approach that councillor and say, ‘Hey, we want you to come to our meetings,'” he said. “The councillor can go there and take notes and bring back information to council. It doesn’t have to be an actual appointment. People can do things on their own quite easily.”
Coun. Baker said he recently attended the AGM of the Nicola Valley Community Gardens Association and brought back information to council.
“I go to quite a few meetings like that because I like to keep up with what’s going on in the city,” he said. “I’m not an appointed liaison to any of these groups, but I take an interest in some.”
