Friends and Neighbours: I had a phone conversation today with Jim Laursen from the local Industry Canada office. I wanted to find out what Industry Canada's role would be in the consultation process we are going through. It was an encouraging conversation. Mr. Laursen seems to have a reasonable perspective on how the concerns of homeowners and telecommunication carriers can be melded. If he maintains a consistent tone, and if his voice is heard, a place might be found for a Metchosin tower that respects the authority of local government and the concerns of residents. Mr. Laursen said that the best role for Industry Canada is no role. That is, the telecoms and the residents should find a mutual solution to tower siting issues. Industry Canada should only step in, he said, if there are issues that the parties could not resolve between themselves. In the conversation I told Mr. Laursen that I thought that Industry Canada might be needed now, that we had a broken process. He challenged me on this statement. It's hard, though, to see how else to describe what is happening. On the one side we have two closely aligned parties: (1) a large group of nervous rural homeowners, hurriedly trying to notify their their neighbours and educate themselves about the impact of cell towers, who are being told by both the Knights of Columbus and Telus that a tower at 4537 Rocky Point Road is a done deal; (2) a local LUA (a land use authority, i.e., the District of Metchosin) which has made a strong and unanimous response to the proposal by stating its tower siting guidelines in an Antenna Location and Consultation Policy by-law and now waits for Telus to come to the table (as of yesterday the only contact they have had with Telus is, incredibly, a mailed copy of the original proposal.). On the other side we have another two aligned parties: (3) a nonresident landowner, a Knights of Columbus group calling themselves the Juan de Fuca Columbus Club, refusing to sit down with those of us in the neighbourhood of the proposed tower to discuss any issue related to the tower; (4) a telecom, Telus, who through its representatives--Darren Hird in particular--is conveying to concerned residents a sense that the consultation process is just an announcement of what will occur. I emphasized the width of the gulf between parties (1) and (2) and parties (3) and (4). Mr. Laursen said that he would contact Telus and see what he could do to get some meaningful dialog going. We then went on to talk about some siting issues on the Knights of Columbus land. In the course of this discussion I realized that he had not seen Metchosin's new antenna siting protocol, so I read him parts of it and sent him a web link to the whole thing. I don't have any immediate thoughts on how Telus and the District of Metchosin can reconcile their visions of meaningful tower sites. The two parties need to sit down and talk about bottom lines and areas of flexibility. It would amaze me, though, if some compromise could not be made that would permit a Metchosin tower to be placed at an inconspicuous site affecting a minimum of local residents. We are not talking, after all, about a new tower in Victoria or Vancouver--Metchosin is a sparsely-populated rural district. I do, however, have some specific thoughts about what is affecting me most right now, which is being on the receiving end, along with the local government, of a consultation process that does not consult. As I have time I hope to outline some steps that could be taken by all parties to mend the broken process. Kem Luther By the way--some of you were wondering if we could submit our responses to the Telus proposal to the various parties via email. Mr. Laursen has kindly given us permission to use his email--jim.laursen@ic.gc.ca--if we feel that it is more convenient to send email than to write a regular letter. So we now have email addresses for the four concerned parties: Telus: Darren Hird Industry Canada: Jim Laursen Juan de Fuca Columbus Club: Ken Rehman District of Metchosin: Metchosin Council I would still encourage all of you to send printed letters if possible, and to postmark them before Sept 30, 2010.