We’re a community newspaper and our goal is to help build community. We have to do that by being a good newspaper. We need to be accurate, trustworthy and objective. Tough things to be, but we endeavour to be them.

Scandal isn’t at the top of our list, but sometimes there are awkward subjects we’ve got to report about. We try to ask straightforward questions and hope for straightforward answers, but just because straightforward answers aren’t forthcoming doesn’t mean we’re going to skip to the next subject. This is part of running a good newspaper and part of building community. Clear communication and openness are devastatingly important.

If you haven’t noticed, we have decided to try to understand the Valemount’s Village Council decision regarding the distribution of Columbia Basin Trust Community Initiatives funding.

Council changed the amount allotted to two groups without a discussion about why. We can’t overlook this. Members of the Community Initiatives Program Advisory Committee have set up a fairly rigorous process to get public input on proposed projects. Council has the ultimate responsibility for the funding - in a public sense. If council sees fit to change the funding they need to explain why. The mayor said council would provide a clarification on the changes at tonight’s (Tuesday, April 22) council meeting. I believe they will ‘make it right’ by explaining the changes or reviewing the decision. You should know why it’s important to us.

It’s not about which group gets more. The scouts are a great group of kids doing great things! And the Canoe Valley Youth Society holds great promise.

This is about community. If the council is acting on information that they can’t tell us about or didn’t bother to mention at the Advisory Committee Meeting of which they were a party to, then they act unfairly.

If it isn’t already a conflict of interest it could easily lead to one. So if you’re wondering why the newspaper is playing hardball with Valemount’s council so early in the baseball season, it’s because we think these things are important, and it’s with no sense of glibness that we ask hard questions of council.

Andru McCracken