We had a council meeting Tuesday night in White Rock and there were some interesting comments at the end of the meeting. I want to share these comments with the public because I don't know whether they will be covered in the Monitor or not.
Councilor Mike Wismer announced at the end of the meeting that council will have a public meeting on Trinity site on July 23rd at 7pm in council chambers in the community building. He started his statement by saying that no forward progress has been made with Boyer for the past 24 months and that the negotiations are currently stalled. He went on to say that the time has come to let the public know the details of what is going on. On July 23rd staff will present a report about what Boyer originally proposed to do and what progress has been made over the past two years. Then options will be presented to Council with regards to the future course of the project. The July 23rd meeting will be followed by a second meeting on or about August 17th to make a decision about the future course of action. The July 23rd date is set but the date in August is not finalized. I will post the date for the August meeting on this blog when it is finalized.
After Mike concluded his remarks I made a few comments of my own. First I disagreed with his characterization of the situation with Boyer and I said that the negotiations have not stalled. I went on to say that many people are concerned about the comments in the paper on Sunday with regards to the 30 day deadline and that as a public service I must let the public know that Boyer has not notified the County that negotiations will end in 30 days. I then asked the County staff to contact Boyer and invite a representative from Boyer to participate in the meeting on July 23rd. I said that I have several questions for Boyer and the public needs to know the answers from Boyer directly. Lastly I was critical of the fact that the public will only have 8 days of notice for the meeting on July 23rd and that it will be hard to notify all the interested people in this time frame because many people are away on vacation.
I think it is important for the public to know that Boyer has not notified the County that negotiations will end in thirty days. Contrary to how the situation was portrayed in the Monitor I believe that Boyer is committed to doing this project and the Monitor article is inaccurate. There are many in the community who want to put blame on Boyer and use this as justification to get another developer. In my view without Boyer there will be no big box store. Furthermore in my opinion negotiations with Boyer will not end unless Council decides to terminate them. This is a very real possibility, but I have no idea how Council will decide the issue.
I only know for certain my position and I want to reassure the public that I am committed to the big box store. Our community needs this kind of retail for a variety of reasons as I outlined in my editorial. We must not forget the majority of voters who approved Ordinance 529 with the understanding that we would finally get a big box store. I will not forget them, not for one second.
Please share this message with everyone in the community: Supporters of Ordinance 529 must come to the Council and say that they want to continue with Boyer and that we must have a big box store.
