The City of Prince Rupert will have to wait a little longer for their day in court, as the BC Supreme Court has granted Sun Wave Forest Products request to postpone any hearings on the matter to the fall.
Reading this together with Northern View’s May 31 article (see link) it looks like the court granted Sun Wave’s request for access to documents (which will take time to review) that the city had previously withheld.
And the chant goes up in unison from the lawyers. Yay! More billable hours!
The cost of which will probably never be known. The civic leaders will probably say that solicitor-client privilege applies so the cost need not be disclosed to the citizens. It’s hard to know if the lawyers are churning the file. The issues seem to be several and complex. The Mayor once speculated that Sun Wave probably did not have the money to pay their lawyers and that they would drop their claims, but that’s not how things are turning out.
hmmmmmm on one hand they say the city took the land illegally from them for taxes due, but yet on the other hand they say they want to know why the city rejected their bid to buy the land in a tax sale.
so if you take the second lawsuit that would mean the acknowledge the city had a right to take over the land for unpaid taxes, which would mean first lawsuit should be dismissed, but yet they continue with both lawsuits.
dang when it comes to the old pulp mill site it is a bizzarro world time
[quote=“Jabber63”]hmmmmmm on one hand they say the city took the land illegally from them for taxes due, but yet on the other hand they say they want to know why the city rejected their bid to buy the land in a tax sale.
so if you take the second lawsuit that would mean the acknowledge the city had a right to take over the land for unpaid taxes, which would mean first lawsuit should be dismissed, but yet they continue with both lawsuits.
dang when it comes to the old pulp mill site it is a bizzarro world time[/quote]
I follow your logic, but I think that the situation is more complicated - or bizzarro - than that. Submitting a bid doesn’t necessarily acknowledge that the city legally took the land. They could be saying that they submitted a bid to mitigate their damages from an illegal taking of the land, but that the city’s sale process was not properly conducted.
They could also be making two claims that are inherently contradictory in order to make alternative arguments. Arguments are just that; they’re not admissions of anything. The backdrop of all of this is the tax sale provisions of the Local Government Act, which are very complicated.
My cautionary advice is that however much people may dislike Sun Wave that does not mean that the two law suits are a slam dunk for the city. Sun Wave, not the city, appears to be winning on the procedual issues so far. They did not go away. They got a lien against the city’s title that has essentially blocked the sale of the land. They convinced a court that more information should be released because there may be more issues.
It may turn out that the biggest issue is not the land, but the chattels, ie moveable property, on the land. The city took title to the land, not the chattels - the Mayor acknowledged that at one point. All else aside, there are questions around whether the city set reasonable terms for Sun Wave to remove their property.
It’s good that Northern View is continuing to follow the court filings and report what they can, even though the situation is quite sketchy.
So, it would appear that when it comes to seeking more transparency and with it that ever sought after accountability in the issue of Watson Island, Sun Wave is indirectly leading the way towards discovery (pardon the pun) for the city’s residents, not the City of PR. That’s something that seems just wrong on any number of levels.