Council has been at it again. Endless closed-door meetings. More secret sessions. And incomprehensible decisions. Not about Picton Terminals this time. Another operator in the harbour. 

The same council that decided it would cost too much to keep its court date with Ben Doornekamp and ABNA Investments has instead spent the past year building a case against CJ and Megan Thompson of Tenacity Marina.

As a direct result, chaos reigns at the Habour this summer. Two marinas are in operation, the one belonging to the County, and the one belonging to Tenacity. Part of the County’s Statement of Claim against the Thompsons asks for “immediate injunctive relief” to stop them from leasing the slips they have been leasing for two years. It claims they have no sublease agreement, and, therefore, they have no authority to operate. 

Technically this is true. The County terminated the agreement. 

But try telling that to the boat owners wondering why the harbour is in such disarray. The County’s Director of Operations, Troy Gilmour, is informing those leasing slips from Tenacity that it has no authority to operate in the harbour any longer, and should be gone by next summer, so just hang tight. 

The implication is that the County will soon be operating Tenacity’s slips.

The Thompsons have spent the past four years engaged in the thankless task of managing the municipal Marina and Launch, spending $1.25 million, not to blast the escarpment with no permits, but to build much needed mooring infrastructure in the harbour. 

The keystone of the County’s legal case against them is the claim that Tenacity failed to remit 10 percent of its nonexistent revenues for every one of the four years it has operated the municipal marina. 

Bear in mind that this marina has never turned a profit. It was losing money at a rapid rate when the County secured the managerial services of the Thompsons in 2020. It now loses money at a slower rate. Since the Thompsons assumed management, they say it only loses about $5000 a year. A dramatic improvement. 

But certainly, if you’ve found some chumps who don’t mind losing $5000 a year while doing volunteer work for the municipality, what you want to do next is kill their contract and launch a court proceeding charging them with not paying 10 percent of the money they weren’t making.

And while you are at it, why not try to seize the 70 docks they built, at a cost of $1.25 million.

Incredibly, the County’s Statement of Claim against the Thompsons complains that even though their sublease was terminated 4 March, they left their docks behind.

It further complains that as Tenacity did not remove the docks, which would mean destroying them, the County will have to do so, at Tenacity’s expense. 

That is because the County did not just terminate the lease on the Marina. It also cancelled the lease on the Thompson’s own water lot, the one that fronts the building they co-own at 35 Bridge Street. 

The Thompsons’ company, Tenacity, submitted an Expression of Interest to the County in 2020 setting out a plan to build a new marina on Water Lot 1, a lot historically assigned to the Bridge Street building, while managing the municipal Marina on Water Lot 2 for the County.

35 Bridge Street has assigned, historical rights to all the moorings on its part water lot. Those rights used to belong to the former Tip of the Bay Marina. In 2014 they were assigned to the then-owner of the Bridge Street building and to all its successive owners in a document signed by the Acting CAO at the time, James Hepburn. 

The EOI, and with it Tenacity’s plans to build a new marina, was approved. A sublease to operate in Part Water Lots 1 and 2 was duly signed in 2020, and they embarked on their plan to build new boat slips while managing the County’s Marina and Launch. 

The Thompsons proceeded to build 70 new slips within an extensive docking system, with full County approval and permits every step of the way, almost entirely at their own expense. The County contributed $250,000 to the public boardwalk, while the Thompsons spent $1.25 million on the boardwalk and the additional slips.

As if all of this weren’t bad enough, it gets worse. A key part of the County’s Statement of Claim against the Thompsons is its assertion that a clearly marked security camera outside the Marina launch office produced “a surreptitious recording” of County staff on a site visit they conducted on March 20th, ten days before the couple had been ordered to vacate the premises. 

It’s hard to say which part of the County’s case against the Thompson’s is more egregious: where it says they should have taken their docks with them when they were evicted, but as they didn’t, they are now no longer theirs, or where it says: “despite purporting to abandon the Picton Marina premises, and having been instructed to remove all chattel, fixtures, and other tenant items from the Leased Premises following termination of the Sub-Lease, Tenacity (intentionally) left behind its own video cameras and surveillance equipment that, unbeknownst to the County, continued to record video and audio.”

The security cameras were installed by the Thompsons three years ago, at the County’s request, after an incident of vandalism at the launch office. They are clearly marked. Further, they had not been “left behind.” The site visit occurred ten days before the Thompsons were to have left the premises.

It’s clear what the pile on is about though. The conversation recorded, in which County staff discuss appropriating Tenacity’s brand new docks — and supplying the hydro and water the Thompson’s couldn’t yet afford themselves — suggests a motive for all the madness. The one place the County’s Statement of Claim might be accurate is where it states, “the release of the Recording…would cause irreparable harm to the County’s interests.” 

The court case launched against the Thompsons is concerned, not just to seize their docks, but to ensure the videotape is destroyed.