To the Editor,
Re: Sharing water is neighbourly, Editorial, Feb. 27.
Nanaimo taxpayers have shelled out hundreds of millions of dollars constructing dams and reservoirs, supply mains and piping, water pumping stations and treatment plants so we can open a tap. This year alone we’re digging deep into our pockets to pay for a water treatment plant on South Forks Road.
So what are we getting from Lantzville for all our groundwork? Lantzville will pay Nanaimo the same water rate that you and I pay. It’ll contribute a paltry sum of money to the Port Theatre and join the Nanaimo Economic Development Corporation, after refusing to do so until enticed by water.
So it’s Nanaimo taxpayers who are really footing the bill for pretty well everything.
So please forgive me when I hear some carefree Nanaimo councillors and this newspaper yammering, it’s neighbourly and makes good business sense to give Lantzville our water. It does not make any sense to the generations of Nanaimo taxpayers who’ve been busting their butts to pay their taxes and build a water system from scratch for over a century – which Lantzville is now being given for a mere drop in the bucket.
Kevan ShawNanaimo
To the Editor,
Re: Nanaimo councillors approve water deal, Feb. 27.
So council has green-lighted water from our tax-paid new system to go to Lantzville. A whole new system at our expense, and we’ll likely be on water restrictions again.
This council continues to spend on frivolous things like arts, special-interest groups, sports and dog parks, raising everyone’s taxes to please a few. Meanwhile they do nothing for the original town sites and south-end infrastructure until they literally are forced to. Their bread is buttered in the north end where they do business for votes.
Neil SaundersNanaimo
To the Editor,
Re: Nanaimo councillors approve water deal, Feb. 27.
Thanks Nanaimo! My taxes won’t go up as much in Lantzville, but yours likely will, now that a majority of your councillors have voted to give us your water at the same cost you pay. And this naive gift comes after all of you have paid through the nose for decades building reservoirs and dams, your water treatment plants and your infrastructure that leads to our door. And you’re giving us your No. 1 resource even though experts say Nanaimo will run out of water in just six to 10 years.
Lantzville will now be able to reap the rewards and a gigantic amount of extra property tax, since we’ll be able to supply your water to a bunch of new developments that we would not have been able to do without your foolhardy giveaway.
Nanaimo ratepayers cannot seem to win with the decisions of the current Nanaimo city council, but others municipalities sure can.
R.C. StearmanLantzville
