I would like to begin by saying that today is the 355th day that Nancy Van Insberghe has been out of her home. Almost a year has past since the landslide and we are once again in the middle of the rainy season. A Heavy Rainfall Alert was issued this morning. Many details are being overlooked because staff is not working with residents to come up with adequate solutions and is not meeting implementation timelines they have promised. Far too much time and taxpayer dollars are being spent with lawyers, insurers, and reporting and far too little of those resources are being spent on implementation.

I just discovered that a 2m retaining wall and terraces below it located at 1593 Lennox were not removed by staff as promised last October. The home of Nancy Van Insberghe has still not been purchased as promised last August.

Residents are not being given the opportunity to review and give feedback on decisions before they are made.

Here are some of my more detailed concerns:

• Why are the 10 northernmost properties on Berkley Ave being required to connect to the storm sewer when their drainage flows into Canyon Creek and not onto the face of the escarpment. They have exactly the same drainage as the homes on Hyannis. There are no homes threatened by the drainage of these properties.
   
• Geotech reports released to dates have been missing terms of reference, key assumptions, and key modeling variables. Without this information the results can neither be reproduced, verified, or questioned by outside geologists.
   
• Why wasn’t the home at 2274 Chapman removed at the same time as the home at 2290 Chapman? It is immediately next door, was vacant at the time, and the heavy equipment was already at the site.
   
• Why was no runout analysis performed for the property at 2157 Berkley Ave? This property was presumably purchased due to concerns that it could be a landslide trigger point and yet no analysis has been performed from it.
   
• Why has an unsightly fence been placed around the catchment basin which is simply a foundation of rocks, gravel, and drain pipe on the step of the escarpment.
   
• Where is the confirmation that the Early Warning System is in place and operating? The district is not releasing any of the rainfall data being collected nor the parameters which are being used to determine when an evacuation will be called.
   
• When is the planning process for the development of the lots of the purchased homes going to begin?

There is no transparency in the decision making process and as such council will be faced with many issues which could easily be resolved if staff would only work more directly with the affected residents. I would urge council to order staff to treat Escarpment residents as partners in the remediation efforts. The Escarpment Committee is the ideal vehicle for achieving this since it has a broad base of representatives from all areas of the community.