Claims made against MLHS have reach new lows in personal attack and public disinformation. Although it is my policy never to dignify personal attack with a response, as President of Comox Valley Nature, I have been asked to set the record straight.
Various claims made in the petition that 100 Baybrook residents signed impute motives that have no basis in fact. They are inconsistent with the contents of reports. I can only surmise that the signatories have been hoodwinked and have no acquaintance with the 2013 and 2014 Mack Laing House Reports, and have relied on the biased deliberate mis-information from a handful of individuals who have always sought the destruction of this piece of the Comox Valley’s cultural heritage.
The Mack Laing Heritage Society is a joint project of Comox Valley Nature and Project Watershed. These 2 award-winning major environmental societies of the Comox Valley with 50 and 20 years conservation work. Any claim that we intent to destroy the site’s natural features, and that MLHS will disappear in a couple of years, is defamatory and contrary to PW’s and CVN’s track record. MLHS is here to stay as long as PW and CVN will be around.
MLHS is a benevolent non-profit society. It is not a “commercial for-profit” business intent on taking over or managing a park. Anyone who opens the reports will note that the society’s mandate concerns only the preservation and maintenance of Mack Laing’s original house “Baybrook,”as a walk-in only interpretive centre open to the public, as per Mack Laing’s wishes. We have no interest in park management. We are not developing a property. We propose to restore a 1600ft. cottage. MLHS activities are mainly for the educational benefit of children and young families of the Comox Valley.
MLHS has prepared a low-impact fiscal plan, so that Baybrook can be restored and maintained at no cost to the taxpayer. Any “profits” are to be directed to the house maintenance and operation, and any surplus directed to conservation work in Comox parks.
The basis of malicious falsehoods spread by the authors of the petition and recent letters, often anonymous and repetitively similar, are obvious in a recent personal attack letter which states: “The letter goes on to state that there will be no conference centre. This is not in accord with MLHS’ own proposal.” A “conference centre” is by definition: “a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typically offer sufficient floor area to accommodate several thousand attendees” (Wikipedia).
So by using a magical inflationary abacus that bears little relation with reality, the authors convert the flexible use of a livingroom for 24 people into a “conference centre” for thousands. A similar inflationary logic takes an occcasional $750,000 Saanich grant for Swan Lake park maintenance and magically converts 100 fold the annual maintenance cost of a fully restored cottage. And 16 children playing outdoors 3 hours a day, is not a “daycare centre.”
The alternate reality of the magical abacus is obvious in the misleading title of the petition: “RE: Commercialization and Development of Recently Acquire Parkland.” MLHS is not developing parkland. It is restoring at its cost, a small heritage house as a walk-in facility, open to the public, housing displays and offering educational programmes. It proposes activities similar to those found at the Capes House and at Swan Lake to help cover costs, as a non-commercial benevolent non-profit.
We can legitimately ask why the opponents have found it necessary to adopt tea-party tactics of personal attack and maligning, and social ostracism. Unlike other parks, access to this property is ungated and unmarked, and is used as a private park with vehicle access. To preserve the “natural features,” the access should be walk-in only as MLHS proposes. This would of course disturb the parking privileges of intolerant residents.
What are these people really opposed to?
a. MLHS educational proposals are supported by the Upper Island Women of Native Ancestry Society (see website). Consequently, as per the Sooke pre-school model the Mack Laing pre-school would have First Nations instructors. Residents opposing the pre-school, effectively freeze native rights to what is in effect traditional First Nations territory.
b. Comox has destroyed much of its heritage, the loss of The Lorne is but one salient case. As Richard Mackie has eloquently and repeatedly documented, and as in Martin Haggarty’s architectural report re-confirms, Baybrook is a heritage building because of the importance of Mack Laing. The authors of the petition, and their friends are opposed to the preservation of an important part of our provincial heritage.
c. They waive away the trust that an old man placed in his community that his “home be used as a natural history museum”, because it inconveniences them.
In short, out of a parking concern, these people see nothing wrong in depriving children, an important elder citizen and First Nations youth with access to their heritage.
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