Small-Town Corruption and Conflict of Interest or just business as usual in Union Bay?

By Christopher di Armani

I’ve been digging around some more into the Union Bay thing… you know… where the Union Bay Improvement District (UBID) tried suing local blogger Mary Reynolds for defamation for daring to question UBID board members about their apparent conflicts of interest.

Between the May election that saw most of the board unceremoniously dumped and the recent resignation of Alan De Jersey from the UBID board, everyone that Mary was complaining about is no longer on the board.

Isn’t that a really interesting coincidence?

Perhaps there were a lot more local residents upset over the [alleged] impropriety of the former UBID board members than just Mary Reynolds.

I recently came across an ad from the Comox Valley Record, one of the newspapers serving the region that includes Union Bay. The ad was intended to generate public support for the Kensington development and pressure the Comox Valley Regional District into signing off on the deal.

What’s fascinating about this ad is that two of the Board members of the Union Bay Improvement District have listed their companies as having “direct and indirect economic interests in the project” yet they don’t see that as conflict of interest.

What’s even more odd is that Denis Royer doesn’t even consider the ad to be what it is: an ad!

Read complete article here.