Ajax public-input process tweaked for the better

The public-input process on Ajax got at least a little more democratic Friday.

The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office will, after all, provide for a town-hall style phase to the process leading up to a decision on the mine.

At the end of yesterday’s events, it would be fair to conclude that the EAO is trying to be fair and comprehensive in allowing people to have a say — it just isn’t very good at it.

A month ago, Chris Hamilton, a project assessment officer with the EAO, met with a half dozen representatives of the Kamloops Area Preservation Association. It was one of several meetings with local organizations.

At least two members of KAPA asked, separately, to record the meeting. Hamilton, they say, adamantly refused.

The meeting was anything but a success. KAPA was told there would be no public hearings as part of the input, due to “public safety concerns.”

Those at the meeting say this was stated at least three times. The “public safety” red herring was based on the rowdy ACC forum of March 2010, which included plenty of boorish behaviour but at no time a threat to anyone’s safety.

The meeting ended with KAPA receiving a commitment to extend the comment period to 60 days, and an invitation to join an advisory committee.

The KAPA reps told Hamilton they’d consider sitting on the committee when terms of reference were made clear in writing. After waiting in vain through the Christmas season, KAPA gave up and announced this week it was turning down the invite.

I wasn’t able to get hold of Hamilton yesterday to ask about his strange reluctance to allow face-to-face meetings on Ajax, though in fairness we did miss each other a couple of times. But he did have Trish Rorison, a communications officer with the environment ministry, call to find out what I wanted.

She said a letter to the editor from the EAO would be finding its way to me momentarily and, sure enough, it showed up while we were still on the phone. In the letter, published elsewhere on this page, John Mazure, acting executive director of the EAO, reveals that KGHM has been directed to hold a “series of public forums.”

Was that a reference to online input, open houses or other indirect “forum” feedback, or does it mean real, town-hall, face-to-face, question-and-answer meetings open to all comers?

In due course, Rorison confirmed it means the latter. “There will be town hall sessions, but they will be held at a different time than the Feb. 6 and 7 sessions,” she emailed, the “sessions” being a reference to a two-day open house planned for the Kamloops Convention Centre.

There will be panelists, but the dates and details of the exact format aren’t known yet.

So, if the EAO has concerns about public safety and thus doesn’t intend to hold Q&A public forums itself, why isn’t there the same concern if KGHM holds them?

“The safety is not getting in the way of anything,” she assured me back on the phone.

So it was all a misunderstanding? Affirmative.

And, she further emphasized, the EAO is strictly neutral and just doing its best to make sure the public has a full opportunity for input.

We must hope the EAO’s best continues to get better.