Dear Editor;
It was Charles Dickens who once wrote “it was the best of times it was the worst of times” as the opening sentence to his novel A Tale of Two Cities almost a century and half ago but those words really reflect today many of the current concerns of our community.
The water crisis is far from being over in regards to its status, true Stage One known as the new road to the dam is complete, and Stage Two, which is the new dam and water supply line has only been approved in principle only. No funding exists, no drawings, no notice of tendering to a contractor only an approval in principle; so how many years from now until we have clean safe water to drink. Everyone in surrounding communities are so far ahead of us and we have somehow opted to settle for less.
The one energetic person who represented our riding has chosen not to run again; Nathan Cullen worked hard for all of the communities of the north. His shoes will be difficult to fill but perhaps skeptically somewhere some foolhardy plans are being discussed for our current provincial and municipal representatives to pull the old switcharoo in both position and politics. Putting us between a bigger rock and an even harder place once again!
Mayor announces new portal for citizens to get their concerns heard, excuse me but is not a portal just another word for a wall? Manipulating social media so face-to-face meetings with concerned citizens are avoided. What is all the secrecy about? Black-out curtains were put away after WW2.
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The mayor’s job has gone to a full-time position and now wanting a huge raise, earning more than many mayors of similar sized communities. Take a good slow walk downtown and count the empty stores, look at streets in disrepair, look at the declining population. We are one half of who we used to be and you want almost double of a wage. Who is hoodwinking who?
Put the raise ideas to a public vote and take your chances, not using a “committee” to make that decision, many committees are hand picked and can be construed albeit a bit biased. Honesty is always the best answer. A 2 per cent decrease in taxes is minuscule and those monies could be side shifted into new raises for some quite easily. What about the elderly? The homeless? The handicapped? The youth? The unemployed? One has to wonder about municipal leaders priorities, perhaps forgetting that we are supposed to be one community.
This is a good community but somehow we have settled for less on just about everything, case in point is airline travel, people opt to travel to Terrace, multiple airlines, multiple schedules… simply more. Much of our shopping is done in Terrace it seems, want to find out what is happening around town? Go to Terrace and talk to your neighbours who are busy filling their carts. A Tale of Two Cities!
Perhaps it is simply a case of various generations of municipal leaders offering us “a bag of magic beans” and we simply say ‘yes’ to their offer and accept the “magic beans.” We have the right to want more as a community, which is a much more important issue than our municipal leaders demanding more. We do outnumber them but perhaps in their minds they think they have us surrounded and at their mercy. Not likely!
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People are waking up and seeing through all of the smoke and mirrors and simply want better. No malice is implied nor intended now nor ever; but merely expressing the need for an opportunity for common sense to prevail for where it is needed most. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to see what is happening!
Glenn Boychuk
Prince Rupert, B.C.
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