Heather Wright/The Independent

Plympton-Wyoming is balking at new rules which force St. Clair Region Conservation Authority Board members to step away from some hearings. Sept. 23, the board of directors, which is mostly made up of municipal politicians, updated its rules for hearings. In rare circumstances, residents appeal a decision made by conservation staff on planning matters. In the last decade there have only been a handful of hearings, two of which were last year.

But the rules for the hearings were being updated and lawyers for the conservation authority suggested councillors who were from the community which was the subject of a hearing, should not be involved in the hearing. SCRCA Executive Director Ken Phillips said “if something goes wrong in the legal perspective” the question could be raised was the municipal politician “unduly influenced… It’s not true at all. I know it’s not true, but I’m just saying the appearance is there that could happen.”

Plympton-Wyoming Councillor Kristen Rodrigues, who is the vice chair of the board, questioned the premise. “I find it very hard to understand how anybody can believe that one person could influence 19 others in their work” she said at the SCRCA meeting. The board ended up approving the new wording.

Prompted by Rodrigues and a resident who voiced concern, the town is taking up the fight.

Rodrigues told Plympton-Wyoming council Oct. 8 all members of the conservation authority board should have an opportunity to be part of the hearings if they chose.

“There’s different people that have different sets of expertise on hearing boards. Farmers…(who) might know things, might be able to put more context to things. You’re there strictly to listen to the merits of the cases, and that’s what you should be doing.” Councillor John Van Klaveren said; “It does seem to be a premise built on distrust rather than trust… in trying to be highly sensitive to fairness, common sense seems to fall by the wayside.”

Councillor Bob Woolvett agreed. “We send a representative to the Conservation Authority to represent the community, to represent the people in their community, to represent their issues from the community. … but when you’re there to represent the issue that’s going on in your community, and you’re not allowed to sit in on it – it doesn’t make sense to me.

“That would be like telling our MP and our MPP that you can’t go down to Ottawa or Queen’s Park and represent your community on your issue that’s brought up in your community.”

Plympton-Wyoming is writing a letter to the SCRCA board asking it to reconsider the new rules.

It will also send a letter explaining their concerns to Sarnia-Lambton MPP Bob Bailey.