The City of Vernon's attempts to disband the Greater Vernon Advisory committee based on the GVAC's overturned recommendation to construct a sedimentation pond in BX Ranch Park appears to be more in the interest of bolstering egos rather than protecting the public interest. I applaud the regional district board for preserving the park by rejecting the BX Ranch Park sedimentation pond. They made the right decision, and for several reasons.

First and foremost, parkland is in short supply in the Vernon area, and any development therein should only be to enhance the park user's experience, not detract from it.

As well, the sedimentation pond as proposed would have created a barrier to fish migration, and would have had a negative visual impact, with the entire pond surrounded by a tall fence.

During the freshet, the two-metre deep pond could create a drowning hazard for dogs. The proposed location was also upstream of the in-stream debris catchment structure, which meant that woody debris swept down by the freshet would be likely to get caught in the pond or on the surrounding fence where it crosses the creek.

Finally, the sedimentation pond failed to deal with the root cause of the sedimentation problem, that being a failure to manage the stream channel and to control erosion and sediments at their source with preventive measures (silt fences or sedimentation ponds immediately below construction sites).

In the end, it appears the main reason the sedimentation pond was proposed for the park was so the city could purchase the land cheaply.

There are lessons to be learned here, and to disband the GVAC because of hurt feelings would be most unfortunate. The argument that this would serve to streamline the process is troubling, as streamlining decision making in government simply results in less public consultation and less transparency, which is not in the public interest.

Firstly, this experience should teach us that in order to make a good decision, you need good information, and secondly, it's always a good idea to consult the stakeholders that will be affected by decisions. Park users, being most heavily impacted, should have been consulted.

The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee is comprised of intelligent, highly capable individuals, but they can only make decisions based on the information they are given. In this case, additional perspectives were presented to the NORD directors at the public hearing, convincing them that the sedimentation pond inside the park was not in the public interest.

Time has a way of separating good ideas from bad ideas, and in this case, I'm sure we'll look back years from now and say that the right decision was made.

Randy Schellenberg