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TOMLINBALLEMLETTER

September 26th, 2009 · 2 Comments

TOMLINBALLEMLETTER

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  • Anita Romaniuk

    At the very least, Council’s decision to rescind the appointment of Ray Tomlin to the Board of Variance BEFORE investigating the issues raised in his Sept 11 Memo (to Penny Ballem, the BoV, and some councillors) is putting the cart before the horse. There are some important issues raised in Mr. Tomlin’s memo with respect to both BoV procedures and the conduct of board members at meetings. For Council to dismiss Mr. Tomlin from the BoV before Ms. Ballem has reported back to Council on the issues in Mr. Tomlin’s memo, implies that Mr. Tomlin is the one at fault for any dissension on the BoV, which is not at all clear from the content of his memo. Indeed, he requested that the BoV have a meeting to try to iron out the conflicts, but was denied (meeting was cancelled). I hope that Ms. Ballems investigation will be thorough and unbiased and not merely an exercise to sweep this whole thing under the table.

  • T W

    At it’s basic, a Board of Variance is the citizen’s route of appeal of planning decisions made by staff. A board that either is deferential to the developers or deferential to the complainants does nobody any favour. But if the Board is setting city policy by default, then that is not to the benefit of citizens either.

    That said, if there are issues with the Board of Variance, it is really a signal that the elected officials themselves are not doing a proper job of overseeing planning and development staff.

    If you want a truly independent Board of Variance, set up proper legislation and give it the powers it needs. But that will never happen,

    My view.