By Grant Warkentin
Conspiring to scuttle a controversial vote at a Strathcona Regional District board meeting has had consequences for Cortes Island director Mark Vonesch.
At the May 27 meeting, the board voted to remove Vonesch from his role as vice-chair, and voted to replace him with Campbell River’s Susan Sinnott.
Mayor Kermit Dahl is one of Campbell River’s representatives on the board. He chastised Vonesch and the other directors involved in the April 29 attempt to prevent a vote on whether or not to bring Quadra Island into the funding model for Strathcona Gardens. At that meeting, several directors left before the vote was called, their intentions to force the meeting to an early close recorded and captured in a conversation between Vonesch and Area A Director Gerald Whalley.
However, enough directors remained at the table in person and virtually, maintaining a quorum, so the vote went ahead while the dissenting directors trickled back into the room.
“This was a disappointing display of many things to me,” Dahl said. “The first thing I saw in this action was a total disregard for due process, and a lack of good governance.”
Pattern of disrespecting peers and taxpayers
He said it’s part of a pattern displayed by some rural directors, giving an example of a vote which was defeated, then re-introduced after he left the meeting by its proponents so it could pass in his absence. Campbell River directors did not get up and leave the room to try and force the vote to fail, he said.
Representatives for Tahsis and Zeballos who took part in the walkout were also in Dahl’s crosshairs, as he pointed out their salaries are subsidized by the Strathcona Regional District, with Campbell River taxpayers covering 70% of those costs.
“Not only incomes – they are billing the SRD for travel, so they have literally been paid to travel to the meeting, and now they’re walking out on their responsibilities,” he said. “Regardless of how you vote, you stay in the meeting, you hear the debate, and you vote your conscience. In my opinion, what was performed should be viewed as an act of bullying, which I’ve witnessed at this board previously.”
Director defends himself
The Cortes director did not apologize but tried to justify his actions while pleading with the board to keep him in the vice-chair role.
“In regards to the last meeting, where a bunch of folks left the meeting for a short period, I had concerns whether… I went out there and was calling Matthew Jack [director for the KCFN who attends meetings via videoconference] and seeing if he was there, because I wanted to make that sure everyone is involved in the vote, and that felt important to me,” he said. “Once we figured out I couldn’t, we couldn’t find – didn’t know what was happening, we came back and we joined the discussion.”
He repeated an inaccurate claim that Quadra Islanders would see their taxes double after joining the funding model for Strathcona Gardens as a reason for the concern prompting his actions.
Vonesch said he hopes the board can continue to work together.
“I’m on all of your teams,” he said. “We don’t agree on everything, but on most things, if you look at our voting record we do agree on.”
Campbell River director Doug Chapman wasn’t convinced.
“To be, I think, a successful director, you basically need three things. You need some knowledge, you need judgment, and discretion. And at the last board meeting, in my opinion, Director Vonesch didn’t demonstrate any judgment or discretion,” he said. “As a man, I like you. We get along. But it’s the actions, what you did, that has me concerned.”
The vote to remove Vonesch from the vice-chair position passed despite opposition from Vonesch himself, Whalley, Quadra Island (Area C) director Robin Mawhinney, Gold River Director Michael Lott, and Sarah Fowler, alternate director for Tahsis.
The Strathcona Standard reported on April 30 about the drama at the April 29 meeting, when Whalley and Vonesch were caught strategizing on a hot mic how to prevent the vote from proceeding by getting their allies to leave the room.
The entire conversation has been preserved here.
The full May 27 meeting can be viewed here.
Actual costs for Quadra Islanders
Bylaw 643 passed on April 29 adds Area C into the funding model for Strathcona Gardens at a rate of 80% of property assessments. Numbers in the bylaw show that translates to $62.75 per $100,000 of assessed property value, with a cost per average residence of $446.29.
The entire requisition from Quadra Island will be $754,491 annually.
Campbell River taxpayers are levied at 100%, and Area D taxpayers at 90%.
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