Re: Time to rethink role of the CRD (Opinion, Aug. 19)
Pirjo Raits deplores the power of CRD directors to “dictate what happens to municipalities or electoral areas other than their own.” She is not being consistent, since her own Sooke director serves on the small committee made up of West Shore directors that dictate land use decisions for the vast Juan de Fuca Electoral Area. This committee doesn’t bother Ms. Raits because it yields the pro-development results she wants. However, it scares the rest of us to have those who represent only 15 per cent of the people imposing their will on the other 85 per cent, with respect to 67 per cent of the regional district’s land area.
At the root of the problem is the provincial government, which has played ball for a decade with those who would bar the majority from Juan de Fuca decisions. If the province had been a fair arbiter, I believe the CRD would have seemed fair as well, to Sooke and Ms. Raits, as well as to the rest of us.
David Bodenberg
Victoria