On October 21, chief financial officer Karen Blow provided council with an update on the cost of legal fees incurred by the lawsuit filed by Richard Underhill and Wolfgang Duntz.
The two Bowen residents launched a legal action against the Bowen Island Municipality in early July. At issue was the Official Community Plan update process. On August 25, the presiding judge decided not to grant an injunction because the OCP had not yet been passed.
Blow said, "The legal invoice came to $29,000. That includes legal fees and disbursement plus some out-of-pocket fees including travel cost, notary cost and photocopying. What isn't included is the time of the director of planning and of staff preparing the information."
Although the municipality was awarded its costs, the lawyer informed them that the sum that might come back to municipal coffers is likely to be much lower, Blow said. "If, for instance, our lawyer takes 17 hours, the court might cover two. The numbers don't bear a direct relationship to the invoices."
Even though Blow doesn't have any exact details, she thinks that the municipality will likely recover anywhere between $2,000 to $10,000. To put this into perspective, she said, "if we have to pay around $30,000, that would present a 1 per cent tax hike. Or we have to look a what programs to carve this sum out of."
