Salt Spring’s Local Community Commission (LCC) is steering clear of an advocacy group’s proposal to place interpretive signage at an island beach that has become the centre of escalating land use litigation, voting to wait to act until the legal dispute over Baker Beach is resolved.
Back in September, local advocate Philip Grange had brought a proposal on behalf of the newly formed Concerned Citizens of Baker Beach, seeking to install an interpretive panel at the beach’s two access points — one near Quarry Drive and the other at the end of Baker Road. Each would show information about the flora and fauna of the beach, and would be built using grant funding — corralled by the interest group in partnership with Transition Salt Spring’s marine stewardship division, according to that delegation.
While the group insisted the signage would be “apolitical,” that delegation came days after news reports that several residents owning property above Baker Beach — homeowners Ethan Wilding, David Demner and Heidi Kuhrt — had petitioned B.C.’s Supreme Court for judicial review of the Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee’s decision not to issue a permit for a shoreline stabilization project in front of their waterfront parcels.
On Thursday commissioners agreed with staff that proceeding with the signage project before the court has ruled on that petition could be interpreted as taking a position in an active legal dispute — undermining expectations that public officials remain impartial during the legal process — and indicated they had no intention of wading into what has become a protracted conflict.
“There’s some stuff that needs to be resolved there,” said LCC member Brian Webster. “Information panels there are a good idea, but it doesn’t make sense for us to be acting until that happens.”
Staff said they had no sense of a timeline for the legal case to be resolved. After a hearing that spanned multiple days, a judge indicated only they would return with a decision at a later date. Wilding told the Driftwood last week he expected the decision would not be released for several weeks or even months.