To the editor:
Re: "Beaver Lake restoration based on science," Letters, Aug. 12.
No one familiar with Loretta Woodcock's sterling character and record could accuse her of participating in duplicity, as Mark Hasiuk has done. She has my long-standing admiration.
However, any claim by the current board of "extensive public consultation over a two-year period" on Jericho Wharf cannot be supported by the facts. Despite large promises in a Visiondominated March 2009 park board meeting, consultation was never public, and was lengthy only in the sense that most of two years elapsed from the initial meeting to the final vote in Nov. 2010. In April 2009, the wharf was fenced off. In November, two closed-door meetings were held, moderated by consultants, with no commissioners present. Nine "stakeholders" were invited. The meetings went nowhere due to the intransigence of Jericho Sailing Centre reps. For most of 2010, the park board website listed Jericho Wharf public consultation as "on hold." That August, a letter from DFO, solicited by Aaron Jasper, cited concerns about fish habitation and migration. Commissioners Robertson and McKinnon jumped in, claiming the wharf was "an environmental disaster." No further assessment was done. In October, a few of us met the new park board GM, Malcolm Bromley, to hear that the wharf was to be removed. In November, when the wharf finally returned to the board agenda, I was told beforehand that a decision had been made in caucus and there would be a unanimous vote for destruction of the wharf.
Joan Bunn, Vancouver
