FILE PHOTO - Summerland brothers Bradley and Darren Besler outside the Penticton courthouse in 2021.

(DAN WALTON / iNFOnews.ca)

A BC judge has ruled that a family's efforts to get information from Summerland's town hall were unfairly blocked.

When the District of Summerland put strict limits on Brad Besler's Freedom of Information requests for three years, it included any family members who might be doing so on his behalf.

Besler's mother Vicki had her own request tossed, but BC Supreme Court Justice Brianna Hardwick found the province's privacy regulator should have given her formal notice of the district's effort before it was disregarded.

Hardwick's April 9 decision overturned the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner's ruling last year that allowed the district to toss nearly ten of the Beslers' ongoing Freedom of Information requests.

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Brad and his brother Darren Besler have been in court multiple times over the last several years, stemming from disputes with their mushroom farming neighbour. It led to trials over criminal mischief, claims of malicious prosecution and accusations that the district improperly allowed the mushroom farm to go ahead.

Hardwick said Brad's requests were related to an ongoing court matter, but she didn't detail what information they might have gotten or the court matter itself.

Beginning in 2019, Brad filed 27 requests over four years and his family members submitted another 18. The district dealt with 13 requests in 2023 alone, according to the decision.

The district argued Brad's requests were "systemic and/or repetitious," adding that they "unreasonably interfere" with Summerland business. That was contained in a notice to the privacy commissioner in 2023, asking that Besler and his family members be restricted from filing such requests for three years.

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Hardwick said the notice was filed in November 2023 and slated for an adjudicator's decision in the following months, but Vicki's Freedom of Information request last February "complicated" the issue.

The district immediately asked the privacy commissioner to include it within the restrictions, without formally notifying Vicki, and an adjudicator abided by that request two weeks later.

Beginning Feb. 29, 2024, Brad and any family members believed to be filing on his behalf were restricted to only one ongoing request at a time. The adjudicator said Brad's requests were "systemic" and "excessively broad," and Hardwick agreed the district was entitled to put on some restrictions because of his repeated and broad requests.

Largely due to a failure to formally notify Vicki of the adjudication, Hardwick tossed the privacy regulator's restriction on the Beslers and sent it back for another ruling. Whether Brad will still face the same Freedom of Information limits will be determined, again, by the privacy commissioner.

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