Editor, The News:
Re: ‘Regretting my move to Ridge’ (Letters, Sept. 14).
I have also been concerned with what has been happening in and around Reg Franklin Park, which is kitty-corner to Eric Langton elementary, where I am a Grade 7 student.
On Friday Sept. 14, me and my fellow classmates went down to the ‘park’ for science to find living and non-living things interacting. But what we found, sadly, was nothing unusual.
We found drug needles, beer bottles, lighters, condoms (used and the wrappers), shopping carts, lawn chairs and much more.
And, yet, the saddest of all, all the little organisms, bugs, they all have to deal with the ‘water’ there, and when I say ‘water,’ I mean disgusting, bubbling, orange and full of needles and condoms.
Also, I have seen all the drug users getting high and dealing, plus I have seen how all the users have changed this once beautiful place to walk your pets into one of the most scariest places in Maple Ridge, because you can never be sure if you’re going to run into a drug deal or not.
So do I , a normal 12-year-old Eric Langton student think its ‘high’ time the RCMP, bylaw officer and district council to go to Reg Franklin Park and see what the people of Maple Ridge mean?
Absolutely.
Haley Murgatroyd, age 12
Maple Ridge
Scrooge not a fan of the Caring Place
Editor, The News:
Re: ‘Regretting my move to Ridge’ (Letters, Sept. 14).
I live in a apartment just a couple of hundred metres north of the Salvation Army’s so-called Caring Place.
We have lived here for five years and my mother-in-law lived in the same apartment for almost 15 years before we moved there.
This was once an attractive and comfortable neighbourhood, but it has steadily lost its appeal since the Salvation Army invaded the area.
Caring Place? Not for us.
We think of it as the ‘Scaring Place,’ due to the human rubbish that now frequents our neighbourhood, many of them drawn by the allure of handouts and support from the Salvation Army.
Caring Place?
Just who is the Salvation Army caring about?
It certainly seems to be anyone but the neighbours of their establishment.
The totally different use of the property, which switched from retail to charitable/institutional, has devalued every property within a two or three-block radius.
Our neighbourhood is now infested with drug addicts, drug pushers, prostitutes and the human detritus we refer to as ‘bicycle bandits.’
Police seem powerless to do much about it and municipal council moans and groans and does nothing.
And the Salvation Army expects the public to support this crap?
I don’t want to sound like Scrooge, but for the first time in 50 or 60 years I won’t be putting one cent in the Sally Ann kettles this Christmas.
Sandy Macdougall
Maple Ridge
