The new year is the time people set about cementing their resolutions for the upcoming year, promising themselves change and motivation. We have a few resolutions we’d like to see for the Alberni Valley.
We’d like the City of Port Alberni to resolve to find a creative way to pay for a new community pool. We also have aging infrastructure that needs attention: we could get behind a project such as the City of Nanaimo, whose council has set up a new reserve fund to pay for strategic projects.
We’d like to see council find a way to earmark a small tax increase to help solve poverty issues in the city—much like Vancouver’s city council has done to combat the fentanyl overdose problem with a one per cent tax increase.
We’d like to see the city devote more attention to the Sprout business program that entrepreneur Kevin Wright came up with, as a way to tackle the empty buildings that plague the city.
For the Alberni Valley School District, we would like to see the district resolve to sell the former Alberni District Secondary School lands on Burde Street. The new high school has seen four graduating classes say goodbye; it’s time to be rid of the empty field on Burde and look forward.
Above all, we’d like people to be a little kinder to one another. We’d especially like to see this on all forms of social media, where the nastiness seems to find root. Speak gently, and your words will carry more weight. Happy New Year.
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