Dear editor,
I want to thank David Allen from the City of Courtenay for correcting my comments regarding staffing levels/budgets in the building department.
If I got the date wrong on the construction value highpoint (2006 v.s. 2005), it’s because I lifted the info from Mr. Crawford’s report in the paper.
This is excellent news that staffing (and expenses, I would hope) have been reduced, so let me be the first to apologize for shooting off my big mouth.
Can we look forward to this in other departments and budgets?
I know it’s not up to you, but on behalf of all the taxpayers in the Comox Valley, we would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see further reductions in costs for government … er, governments.
As for the information in the second half of your letter, the hospital is good news, but bragging about 153 new residential subdivision lots — do you guys remember that ‘crash’ in 2008?
The underlying cause was rampant house-building in the previous years. And the deaths of so many cities and town centres across North America can be laid at the feet of a rush to the suburbs and instant-mall mentality.
We could be ahead of the curve in the Valley, instead of following it.
Further development of municipalities should be internal, within existing cores. Period.
In the long run, everyone would benefit (except the land pimps), infrastructure and servicing costs would drop, and our car-centric culture would gradually give way to a more benign model. A forest or a field beats a driveway any day.
Me, I’m looking forward to the day we finally create an economy not built around land speculation, resource extraction, and big-box retail. We’re better than that.
Andy MacDougall,
Royston
