Re: Councillor Podmore’s letter (PNR, June 1). Councillor Podmore states: “There is a small group of people who continually criticize and blame Sidney Council for some businesses not doing well.”
In fact this is a rapidly growing group of residents and businesses as membership in SOS will attest.
The reasons are not hard to find. In spite of numerous requests from businesses over the past three years this council has done nothing to fix our gateways, create an accessible tourist information office, impose architectural guidelines or animate downtown by day and night.
More importantly it persists in maintaining a one-way Beacon Avenue as “quaint,” thus depriving downtown retailers, restaurants and hotels of added business.
Podmore also states “positive things are on the horizon,” by which I assume he means that he continues to maintain his initial assertion that the pending competition from Jesken and Sandown will be beneficial to downtown. Time for a change.
Richard D. B. Talbot, Sidney
