District of 樱桃视频council cancelled the 樱桃视频Oceanfront Development Corporation's (SODC) Annual General Meeting Tuesday (July 31), drawing sharp criticism from community members.
The SODC's AGM was supposed to take place Tuesday and include a detailed public review of the arm's-length corporation's financial statements, which include a $635,930 loss.
However, Mayor Ian Sutherland put an end to the meeting before it ever began.
"According to the Municipal Government Act, council can only meet as a group when the mayor or acting mayor is sitting in this chair," said Sutherland.
In a confounding policy matter, a financial report must be voted into approval by shareholders or shareholder stewards - the council members - before an AGM and public disclosure can take place, said Sutherland. And an AGM could not take place Tuesday because such meetings cannot take place while a municipal council is in session, said Sutherland.
"So we could not vote on the motions to pass their statements in an AGM. Instead we'll come back in September with a public meeting of some kind."
This decision drew adamant opposition from a few residents in attendance.
"Are we, the public, not allowed to question the SODC on what this has cost the public?" said John Erickson, who rose from his chair to interrupt Sutherland's address.
"It says that I am a shareholder, that the public are shareholders. This has to be the shareholders' meeting. You can't play around with us anymore!"
"We came down here for an advertised AGM," added John Graham. "What a waste of time. Is council not responsible to us?"Following the meeting, Sutherland conceded that it would have been possible to have a public meeting to discuss the SODC's financial statements and then close the AGM and go into regular council in order to accept the financial statements."It's not something we thought of," he said.
The SODC has had a few policy mishaps since its inception. The organization has not had an AGM since January of 2006 even though all government owned corporations are required to have an AGM every 12 months under the Municipal Government Act. And normally, board members are elected at an AGM, but council approved the current board in March without a general meeting.According to SODC CEO Mike Chin, the financial loss for 2006 was due to the Memorandum of Understanding between the district and Qualex not moving forward after Qualex stepped away from the project last fall.
The $635,930 loss includes $96,710 in unrecoverable staff and administrative costs. The remainder of the loss was not broken down into costs and made available at the meeting, although Chin said it had to do with consulting costs.
"Those losses are on things that do not have value moving forward," said Chin. "Most of our expenses, such as engineer reports have an intrinsic value we can use in the future. What is noted there does not."
Coun. Mike Jenson expressed frustration at not having an AGM, but said that if rules under the Municipal Government Act did not allow for the meeting to take place during the regular council meeting then council had to comply.
"It's unfortunate," said Jenson. "I was hoping to hear from the public."
