If there's one thing a decision by the B.C./Yukon Court of Appeal has stressed for Marianne Darragh, it's the importance of whom voters elect to city council, she said this morning.

On Friday, the court released a ruling in the city's favour. The court stated the city's Official Community Plan (OCP) cannot be changed by a petition for referendum, on the appeal it filed against an earlier decision of Yukon Supreme Court Judge Ron Veale in Darragh's favour.

Darragh had originally won her case for a referendum, taking all the necessary steps for a city-wide referendum on whether voters support the protection of the area within 500 metres of the McLean Lake shore.

"In my view, the (Municipal) Act contemplates that amendments to the OCP must be initiated by the council," reads the 16-page document by the court of appeal

"This interpretation is consistent with the overall planning function of the OCP. The adoption of an OCP is a collective process that focuses on the broadly based interests of the community as a whole. It does not involve planning by individually based interests that are more narrowly focused."

That decision, Darragh said, means the city can simply say it is acting in the public interest even if it is not.

"Basically, they're like little kings up there," she said of city council, noting her shock with the decision.

Basically, she argued, she's being punished for "being engaged."

The ruling, she suggested, has made the assumption individual citizens are only acting in their own interests, and didn't address what the legislation within the Municipal Act was intending. Since the act is a territorial document, she added, the Yukon government could have cleared that up.

It seems that the government has more checks and balances than the city does, Darragh argued.

The decision cites several sections of the Municipal Act and city bylaws governing amendments to the OCP (which acts as a guiding document in city planning), referendums and zoning in Whitehorse before reaching its conclusion that Veale had erred in his original judgment.

"With respect, the attempt to harmonize the two procedures (outlined in the legislation) through the creation of a nine-step process creates, in my view, an unnatural fit that was never contemplated by the legislature," reads the ruling.

"It also appears to create conflict by imposing positive obligations on the city, when the city's role is properly understood as being purely administrative, and by establishing time constraints for those obligations that

appear to be impracticable, if not impossible to meet."

While the judges also cited cases in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Darragh pointed out today those matters aren't governed by the Yukon's Municipal Act, which is different.

"Lastly, courts in Alberta and Saskatchewan, when faced with similar provisions in their respective local government acts, have declined to interpret provisions for referendum bylaws are applying to the enactment of planning and land use bylaws," the judges ruled.

"While the legislation in those jurisdictions was not identical to the relevant provisions in the (Yukon's Municipal) Act, similar reasoning was applied to conclude that, given the purpose and objectives of planning,land use and development bylaws, the specific procedures for the adoption or amending of those bylaws could not be overridden by the referendum provisions in another statute."

It then cites a number of cases from those provinces, noting that the legislatures in both provinces have changed their legislation to exclude planning and land use bylaws from the referendum process

Both the city and Darragh were ordered to pay their own costs for the litigation.

Darragh said she hasn't yet decided how she will proceed with the decision, also pointing to the need for a review of the Municipal Act.

"It's not done yet," she said of her battle.

While the court of appeal ruled against Darragh on her matter, it favoured the McLean Lake Residents Association in its battle against the city over the development of a concrete batch plant.