Dear Editor:
Summerland city council’s preoccupation with growth completely ignores the fact that we do not have to grow.
The key to stable, productive and safe communities is to establish and maintain sustainable economic activities.
Over time that will allow the city to fine tune infrastructures to serve the needs of the community.
One of our city council’s most important mandates is to protect our properties and our quality of life.
For those members of city council who are not sophisticated enough to appreciate the laid back friendly rural lifestyle we have adopted over the years the solution is simple:
Move to a larger centre like Kelowna, Toronto, or Detroit, where they can satiate their cravings for all the things that destroy societies, like drugs, noise, and pollution.
Forget about building sky scrapers and high-density and high social cost developments, not to mention helter skelter rural developments that are extremely expensive to service, instead of orderly infill developments from the city centre out.
Stop wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars we don’t have on plug-ins for electric cars that will never be used by anybody and unsightly electronic billboards that only adds to the clutter.
It is also time to start looking for undeveloped land to store all those RVs that are beginning to make our residential neighbourhoods look like trailer parks.
A high priority should also be given to upgrade our city’s bylaws from rural to city status to give the bylaws department the tools it needs to curb the proliferation of hedges, fences, wood piles, farm equipment, unlicensed and derelict vehicles on our residential properties and public parks and boulevards.
The smart way to deal with distressed properties is by adopting and enforcing land use by-laws that does not allow unsightly premises to develop.
For the councillors who still remember why they were elected, it’s time to forget about their political ambitions and personal interests and begin to address the real needs of the community.
Andy Thomsen
Summerland
