I dont understand. If his Lawyer has filed the papers……Why is Skakun saying he hasn’t decided to move forward. Is his lawyer acting without instruction?

Go ahead and appeal Brian, maybe then the public will see you for who you really are.

Go for it!

Time to end this madness. Move on already.

Talk about a waste of money. The courts time can be better utilized then to dealing with this issue.

The story is very clear. If Leave to Appeal is not filed within the 30 day time frame an appeal is not possible at a later date.

Skakun has not yet decided if he wants to file papers for an appeal. Apparently even if he does, before an appeal commences, a judge will first make a ruling allowing or disallowing an appeal, after determining if there are any reasonable grounds/merits for an appeal.

People have guaranteed rights and that is how the legal system works to prevent injustices.

I have always been uncomfortable with our ELECTED municiple government conducting meetings in which the transcripts are not available for public review. I believe that nothing beneficial comes from any such behavior. If it does not hold up to public scrutiny, then I fail to see how council is working on our behalf.
That said, if Brian Skakun can afford to fight, then go get em’!!

Who is in charge of this runaway train brian or his silly lawyer.

It is hard to believe that he might try to keep this going and waste more of our hard earned taxpayers dollars by using up valuable court time that we all pay for.

I am not sure which is worse, the fact that he continues to act like a teenager who doesn’t get his way by challenging every decision that goes against him or the two silly things he has narrowed his argument to, one a being a technicality (the rules don’t apply to me because I am not an “officer” defense) and two; that the judge was crooked and was out to get me (the reasonable apprehension of bias defense).

brian you do a good job on council and you would certainly be a better mayor than the corporate puppet we now have, but let this go.

Get real Skakun !!!

Let it go Brian. What you did was fair it helped,some one that needed help.
Cheers

Brian loves to see his name in the lime light, he must have more money than brains. Time to move on!!!!!

And this years award for needing to see his name in the media to help his low self esteem goes to….
Going for a fifth year in a row….

Skakun the guilty.. Grats Brian

. You are also looking good to win the most waste of the publics and court time.

Is PrinceGeorge the only person that actually read this story? They file so that they have the ability to appeal. It does not mean that they are going to. Its a pretty automatic step that happens everyday. Really a non-story at this point.

Well the story interceptor, seems to be the fact that the person in question hasn’t made up his mind yet whether or not he’ll pursue it further. Which means he is considering it, even at this juncture when he has been found guilty by two separate judges.

I think that’s what everyone is reacting to and rightly so. What a colossal waste of resources, especially in a time when they’re letting criminals walk because we don’t allocate enough resources to try them. I know we’re talking about different types of courts, but on sheer principle, this is repugnant.

Every attempt he has made through legal channels to demonstrate or endorse that what he did was right has been thwarted. To avoid censure, he apologized to council and they magnanimously let the matter rest. He should have the good grace to do the same, and thank his lucky stars it didn’t turn out worse for him. I hope he learned something from this.

“at this juncture when he has been found guilty by two separate judges”

Actually, it is accurate to say that he has been found guilty by one judge and inaccurate to say he was found guilty by two judges.

I will assume that your point of view is a mistaken understanding of court procedures rather than malice towards Brian … ;-)

The appeal included the suggestion that the trial judge showed an apprehension of bias. The appeal was dismissed.

There was no de novo trial. There was an appeal of process/state of mind. That appeal was struck down.

I think Brian keeps on having this positive approach problem …. People on here tend not to like it …. They prefer the negative approach …. ;-)

I can’t believe I also wasted my time reading yet another column on this issue. It is the last one for me. I am out of here.

Enjoy your day, CEO (Canine Enforcement Officer?)

Brian is not wasting the tax payers money. He has to pay his own legal fees. It is the City thats wasting your money to take Brian to court. And they,.like to do that just look at the Haldi Road event.
Cheers

“Retired 02” – you are wrong in saying the city took brian to court. far from it. Provincial crown counsel laid charges after an independent police investigation.

This was not civil action but a criminal proceeding and as such we as provincial taxpayers foot the bill for the operation of the court system including crown council, the judges, the building, the process, etc.

SO while brian may (or may not) be paying his lawyer, he isn’t paying court costs. That bill is being footed by our hard earned provincial tax dollars.

Yes retired 02 – Brian was caught in the middle of the campaign soliciting money from the people of Haldi Rd. It is not know if or how much money changed hands. interesting……..Who is paying the bills??

Our hard earned tax dollars are also paying for the BIG ads in the newspaper asking have you been tested for HIV like we are all into sex and drugs in P.G. The the BIG Van that drives around giving out needles and condoms how much is this all costing?? Are places in B.C. like Vernon getting the same stuff shoved at them or is it just P.G. Brian is not wasting tax dollars ,he is worth every cent he makes on City Council, you hardly hear a peep out of the others.People contact him when they need help, thats how he got into this mess.

Lets be like Brian Skakun and say NO to all treatment centres in Prince George. Then we can have more needle vans on the taxpayers dime. lets not solve any problems, lets just bitch.

Brian Skakun doesn’t help anyone unless it suits his political gain.

Soxmalone ; Seeing the Needle Van delivering to Crack houses is not what I want my tax dollars spent on, you bet I am going to keep bitching. This Van and Treatment Centers should not be in Residential Areas.People should be thinking about the safety of the Children, Harm reduction can sometimes cause Harm enhancement, why is it up to P.G. to provide all these services ?? I do not agree with your last statement.

bitter. I do not agree with harm reduction either. The needle van must go. Treatment centres are not about harm reduction. Treatment centres do not hand out needles or methadone etc. It is antithetical to their purpose. Treatment centres are where people go to get away from all that.

PG does not provide any of these services. Not one cent of city money goes to them.

Go for it Brian I hope you win. There are some people who don’t value what you have done to them I say too bad. But to those many people who you serve well and appreciate what you have done I say thank god we have whistle blowers like Brian Skakun to protect the tax payer from those with lots of cash and no brains. — I have a name that I call them but I don’t use this blog for that.

Does anyone have a good handle on how many “treatment” spaces there are in the region north from Williams Lake onwards?

What are the types of programs?

How many people are assisted every year?

How many were there 30 to 40 years ago compared to today?

How is success measured?

What is the success rate?

How many people can be served per 10,000 population compared to the lower mainland and south island?

Remote areas and smaller comunities likely have more problems because of the social and economic structure. I would like to see some current information about that. I know small towns with forestry as a primary income were very badly off for many structural reasons.

Often, prevention is not there. Help is often only sought in a reactive situation rather than a proactive situation.

If there are people on here who know some of the source information that would be helpful. If not, then we are all just yacking off the top of our heads out of frustrion from the “we are not doing anything” side as well as “these people are costing us too much money”.

And both are likely right. In the meantime, the problem does not get solved.

Soxmalone, you keep bitchin’ with very little knowledge to offer to help the situation.

I responded to your southern centres post tht are all in residential areas, which were, when I did the research on the ones I was not familiar with already, in exactly the two types of locations I described. Those locations are all totally different from locations one would find an elementary school in. This City ought to have located such areas a long time ago.

The government dropping hospital co-located facilities happend some time ago and the move and creation of different types of facilities should have been very familar to any planning department and City Administration as well as Council some time ago – especially so when there have been at least one or two Councillors on who know these things more than anyone else at City Hall.

SPeaking about that, I would like to know which Councillor has been assigned to deal with which aspect of operating this City.

If none have been, then it is about time that the workload is properly assigned so that it gets done and not just forgotten by an amorphous group of nodding heads.

They all don’t nod gus, we have one whose head shakes unless the others are shaking, THEN it nods;)

and when we think we have it bad look south of the border. It’s a wonder some of these people still know how to breathe.

[url]http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/the-crackpot-caucus/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20120824[/]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/the-crackpot-caucus/?nl=opinion&emc=edit_ty_20120824

oops

Hey, that is a good one, lonesome sparrow …. while I agree that our Council is not that far gone yet, it does remind me very much of opinions on this site … :-)

I sort of feel sorry for those members of congress … if they were to watch Jay Walking on the Leno show, they would not understand why people are laughing. :-)

P.G. does provide services as far as treatment centers go, Baldy Hughes is one. What is going on out there you never hear anything any more.