Editor:
Re: Newton casino in talks to move south, May 31.
I and others are deeply concerned as to where our community in South Surrey is heading.
We were not amused when the previous mayor gave us the blot on our quiet farmland on 24 Avenue east of Highway 99 – Morgan Crossing. Now we learn that a casino/hotel and convention centre is to be on 8 Avenue.
I am sure no one on the west side of Highway 99 towards White Rock was ever consulted or approved this monstrosity to again ruin our community. Most of the residents, I am sure, moved to South Surrey for its beauty and quiet living and not for some Vegas type of action.
I also have heard a rumour that our First Nations may also build a casino on the land they recently fenced off. As I said, we do not want or need Vegas in our quiet suburban lifestyle.
South Surrey has a very large conservative vote who would not be happy with city officials who approve this change to where we live.
Martin Cooper, Surrey
• • •
There’s a guy out there who wants to put something gross in your backyard.
Gross stuff includes anything from a monster house, to a strip mall, to an all-night rock-and-roll strip bar.
Oh, and it can really ruin your day to look out your window and see a 200-room gambling house.
The reason this guy wants to put the stuff in your backyard is that he can make lots of money. He is following the basic law of money and happiness: “Make lots of money and be happy.” Unfortunately for you, there’s an inverse law of money and happiness: “If somebody gets a lot, then somebody loses a lot.”
The guy then goes to the city councillors and asks for permission to put the gross stuff in your backyard. He promises he will pay tribute to the forest he cuts down with a decorative grouping of saplings that will reach full glory in less than 100 years! The councillors say yes because they want to ‘broaden the tax base’ – wink, wink.
You don’t want the gross stuff in your backyard because it’s making you unhappy and you can’t get away because nobody wants to buy a house with gross stuff in the backyard. To make matters worse, your taxes went up, despite the broadened tax base, because the gross stuff needed ‘infrastructure.’
So you complain and everyone points at you and calls you a NIMBY. These finger-pointers are not afraid of progress. They are secure and happy. They’re happy because nobody is putting gross stuff in their backyard. Unfortunately, they aren’t aware of the cumulative law of money and happiness: “Those with lots, tend to want more.” Right now, the guy with the gross stuff is looking for a new backyard.
There is one place where you are safe from the guy with the gross stuff. This is the councillors’ neighbourhood. They don’t like gross stuff either and there are, after all, certain limits to the broadness of the tax base.
The problem is that most of us can’t afford to live there. For some reason, councillors, like the guy with the gross stuff, have lots of money. You see, they understand the reciprocal law of money and happiness: “You scratch my back, I scratch yours.”
S. Palmer, Surrey
