Connelly slams council procedures
Tara Kearsey
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 17/00) - The fight between North Country Stables and Weatherby Trucking may be over for now, but Yellowknifer David Connelly has ensured the new council will not soon forget it.
Council approved Weatherby Trucking's application to build a marshalling station on Highway 3 by a 6-1 vote Tuesday night.
Representing Joanna Jonkisz, one of the co-owners of North Country Stables, Connelly criticized council for the way it handled the conflict between the stable-owners and Weatherby Trucking.
"Frankly, my client has been whipped on this," he said during a presentation to council Tuesday night.
When contacted Wednesday, Jonkisz said co-owner Tom Pisz has proposed to buy out the two other partners of North Country Stables. If the financing does not go through, she said the business will be put up for sale.
"I am not about to take the liability of the trucking company next door.
"It's only a matter of time before an injury happens. One or another way, a horse will react to the noise with a small kid on it and it will be dangerous," she said.
Connelly questioned where things went wrong, why there were once two entrepreneurs involved in this matter, and now there remains only one who wants to do business in Yellowknife.
"We had two businesses ... we had two good citizens, we may now be losing one.
"Our system pitted them against each other. Our system failed to help them. Our system failed to step in and see the conflict in use and come up with some constructive solutions," said Connelly.
He went on to say friends and neighbours who once lived in harmony were now writing letters in protest against each other, they had become enemies because of this fight.
In response to Connelly's comments, Mayor Gord Van Tighem said Connelly did make some good points, but would have liked to have heard some suggestions as well as criticism.
"Some constructive suggestions would have been appreciated even more," he said.
Van Tighem said this conflict hit the new council right off the mark and it was very difficult to change any actions taken by the previous council.
"It was very much in motion at the time and you have to deal with the wisdom and previous decisions (of council) to some extent.
"But in the future one of the things that we have to address is the updating of the general plan and how that will apply to every other thing as we move along," the mayor said.
