The 610 people who completed the Oak Bay Marina lease questionnaire need to know their opinions have reached council with no analysis whatsoever. Staff’s report provides no tabulation of preferences, grouping of interests, or synthesis of issues. Falsely titled “a summary,” it is in fact 641 pages of individual responses. Similarly, the 59 residents who wrote council should know that council has received their 83 pages of comment without any analysis.
Thus each councilor must read 734 pages to discern citizens’ views. Staff asserts, “There was enough diversity, nuance, and complexity to the high volume of responses, that providing a succinct and accurate summary would be very challenging and would not do the input justice.” This confirms that the survey’s poor design makes it virtually useless for decision makers.
I urge all Oak Bay residents visit https://www.oakbay.ca/sites/default/files/Questionnaire-Responses.pdf to confirm how onerous and futile reading such data would be for any conscientious councilor
The survey makes it impossible to determine the public’s preference for Proposal 1 or Proposal A or their aspirations for this community resource. More fundamentally, the public received less information about each proposal than is found in a condominium brochure. Council owes its residents meaningful ways to provide input before narrowing options. Its actions to date fall far short of Oak Bay’s communication policies and stated principles.
Gordon Alexander
Oak Bay
