Out of town candidates
This is a brief letter to all the voters of the City of Powell River to point out that three of the candidates running in the November 15 election, for a seat on council, do not live within city boundaries. Gela Road, Ramsay Road and upper Nootka Street are all in the Powell River Regional District [“Formosa will return as mayor by acclamation,” October 15].
My point is that should one or more of them be elected they can vote on the money issues that come before council and they do not have to worry about their taxes increasing, which is something we face every year.
We have already experienced this in the past and currently there are two councillors who do not live inside the city and yet they make decisions on how to spend our tax dollars.
Is this fair?
Please think about this when you cast your ballot.
Jan Deptuck
Surrey Street
Library cares
How I feel when I go to the
Loving
Interesting
Browsing
Reading
Activities
Rewarding
Yes!
LIBRARY [“Library referendum question will be on civic ballot,” September 24].
Joanna Dunbar
Strathcona Avenue
Internet access
Will you vote yes on the new Powell River Public Library referendum? Are you undecided [“Library site doors open,” October 22]? If so, then read on.
Equal access has come to include access to the Internet. An essential quality of fairness in democratic society is a level playing field. Canadian public libraries, providing their users with free access to communications, literature, culture and recreation promote a level playing field that strengthens our community, economy and nation.
Yet, there is “trouble here in River City.” On most days, at peak hours, library users wait, then wait some more to use the library’s computers which are shoe-horned into a high traffic location. More devices are needed if the digital access requirements, including those of the most disadvantaged are to be served. However, without a more suitable, enlarged space for computers, the community’s need for Internet access cannot be met.
Recent research has revealed these findings:
1. Ninety-three per cent of high income BC households have home Internet access…while only 71 per cent of BC households in the lowest income bracket do.
2. In 2009 Powell River, 2,260 (23% of families), including 1,010 children and 350 elderly were living in poverty.
3. For 50 per cent of those living below the poverty level—roughly 1,000 local families, or 2,500 individuals—the library is the only access to the Internet.
More library space is needed. See for yourself. Visit the library. Ask the librarians how they work in their rear door, basement shoebox space.
Once per century is not too often to have an adequate, purpose-built library. Vote new library yes.
Rob Arnstein
Library Trustee
Books of opinion
Over the period of lengthy discussion regarding a new Powell River Public Library, many of us have felt buffeted, rankled and disappointed, justifiably so. However, we need to realize that the possibility of finally having a thoroughly suitable, functional and contemporary library, a distinct asset to our community, is finally within our reach [“Library site doors open,” October 22].
Last year, the library board hired an independent consultant to conduct an unbiased public opinion poll regarding the need/desire for a new community library.
The results showed that:
1. Seventy-six per cent support a new library if it is not on the Willingdon South site.
2. Eighty-six per cent agree that the current library is too small.
3. Eighty-two per cent agree that libraries are important community and cultural centres that produce positive economic and social benefits for the whole community.
Residents of Powell River who share this level of support now have the power to usher in a new era of literacy, community and cultural sharing in Powell River.
I urge you to be forward-thinking and cast your yes vote on the library referendum on November 15.
Liane Arnstein
Klahanie Drive
Party policies
This City of Powell River Council election is important. For the first time we see the emergence of an American-style, well-financed political party with a slate of shiny and personally attractive candidates. Individually, they all seem to be pretty nice people. What is their party agenda?
So far, they seem to be only united in opposing stuff [“Residents speak about municipal concerns,” October 29].
I read their polished, professionally produced material, and see vague concepts of sustainability. Higher taxes? Less messy industry? Market gardens? Arts and crafts and culture? Bicycles? But no ideas of how we will pay for the things we need to keep our town going.
Our town needs business and industry to support all the nice things we are used to.
We do not need to introduce party politics to our city council with a slate united to oppose progress.
We have acclaimed a mayor, in an unusual vote of citizen confidence. He needs a council who will support initiatives to retain and to encourage business, to simplify delivery of critical services, and to bring new jobs.
I believe this Powell River Voices party slate will stall our council, stymie progress, and put us on a path to an ill-defined and diminished future. Maybe nice for a few rich people, but maybe not so nice for the rest of us.
Vote.
Jim Donnelly
Vananda Avenue
Throwing stones
City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa misleads voters by writing about a slate of candidates running in this civic election who would follow “the party line” [“Decision day approaches,” November 5].
What slate? What party line? Even a casual reading of all the new candidates’ literature and websites reveals that they are all, in fact, “independent citizens” with no common platform.
At the same time as Formosa attacks new candidates for being part of this phantom slate, he calls on people to vote for the incumbent councillors—discouraging anyone from ever running for council in Powell River. It takes courage and commitment to your community to put yourself forward for public office and to be disrespected in this manner by the mayor is unacceptable.
Three current council members—Formosa and councillors Chris McNaughton and Debbie Dee—have been on the local Liberal Party riding executive while they were councillors.
On many important issues including sewage privatization, the huge tax break for Catalyst Paper Corporation, and promoting a risky run-of-river power project they voted in line with Liberal government policies. On the ferries issue, the mayor and his supporters advocate a “honey rather than vinegar” approach (in Dee’s words) believing that being nice to the Liberal government will change things.
Perhaps the mayor is projecting on others what he has been involved in himself.
Kay Bremner
Southill Road
Newbie to Powell River
I moved to Powell River to work on the Toba Montrose project and have been a resident since 2007. Powell River is a unique place and is indeed a gem but it is dying because the population is not growing. To grow it needs jobs and investment [“Mayor highlights opportunities,” October 22]. There are simply no other alternatives that work.
If your candidate for council does not feel that way the entire population will suffer.
Voter turnout here is very low, meaning people running with personal or political agendas (not the best interests of the residents), need only get a small number of votes to win. Tax policy, spending priorities, infrastructure development and governing best practices are all at risk.
People get exactly the government they deserve. If you do not vote you cannot complain about the actions of those elected.
On November 11th we remembered those who laid down their lives so we could vote for our leaders on the 15th.
Robert Poore
Ontario Avenue
Win at any cost
When I read City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa’s full page election advertisement in Powell River Living Magazine and the Weekend Shopper, I was not surprised by just how low he is willing to stoop in order that his “team” remains on city council [“Decision day approaches,” November 5].
Formosa’s message to the eight new candidates for council was very clear.
None of them—Karen Skadsheim, Carole Ann Leishman, Rob Southcott, Anita Adams, David Dickson, William Ashworth, Jim Baron or Ron Ostensen—are good enough to be on his “team,” as they are either part of some imagined unnamed political slate or simply unsuitable to him.
Formosa’s message begs the voters to vote for his slate—Debbie Dee, Jim Palm and Maggie Hathaway—as though the voters were a flock of lambs, incapable of choosing councillors and their future for themselves.
This shameful behaviour by Formosa at election time is not new.
Just weeks before the 2011 civic elections, Mayor Stewart Alsgard announced that he wanted the public to vote on the contentious question of co-treating the city’s wastewater at Catalyst Paper Corporation mill. Formosa’s team adamantly opposed the mayor. Formosa then announced that, although he looked up to Alsgard as a father figure, he would run against him for mayor.
A few days before the 2011 election, councillors Dee and Hathaway hand-delivered a letter to Alsgard’s home. That letter, signed by Dee, Palm, Hathaway and Formosa, called for a special closed council meeting to consider “alleged breaches of confidentiality by Mayor Alsgard,” a serious offence. Alsgard insisted that an open meeting be held so that any alleged act and the accuser would be known. These councillors chose to hold a closed meeting. To this day, no alleged act committed by Alsgard has ever been made known to him, nor has the cowardly accuser within Formosa’s team ever stepped forward.
The damage was done and Formosa was elected mayor by a narrow margin.
Powell River deserves better than these gutter politics and I for one will be voting for some of the very good new candidates for council.
Clark Banks
Westview Avenue
Firecrackers too abusive
The noise from the old-fashioned, familiar little firecracker is quickly being outdone and replaced by bigger, louder sounding fireworks which are now all too common on Halloween. It’s not entertaining. It’s not fun [“Fireworks cause trauma,” November 5].
I can keep my cat in the house and try to comfort him when the crazyness starts but the farm animals, the wildlife and the pets who live outside aren’t so lucky.
They are left to endure the shock, the fear, and the trauma from the continuous exploding sounds that are akin to the sound of the worst thunderstorm or bombs exploding. It’s not fair. It’s not right.
Instead of being treated as though they’re just another firecracker, I would like to see the ones that make the loud booming sound banned. So would my friends, the animals.
Carmen Ward
Hillcrest Avenue
Will mayor get his wish?
In last week’s Weekend Shopper and the November Powell River Living Magazine, our incumbent, unopposed City of Powell River Mayor Dave Formosa told us what he wants; twice in bold letters he asked us to “Please help me to rebuild our economy by re-electing the existing council,” and two paragraphs later, “…please re-elect our whole council…” [“Decision day approaches,” November 5].
Is he saying that if we elect new people to council that we are contributing to a future failed economy? Or does he mean that he won’t work with the new council? Or is he suggesting that electing anybody from outside the current council will guarantee his failure?
When Formosa wrote his preferences did he understand the message he was sending to his constituents? Did he realize what his words meant, how democracy is supposed to work, or did he care? What I’m afraid of is that Formosa merely wants to continue controlling what he perceives to be his personal “sand-box.”
He also wrote that he “was very concerned and disheartened to hear that we have a ‘slate’ running in this election.”
Now he’s really confused me. By asking us to vote for all the current council members, he has named himself as leader of a slate comprised of all the current councillors. Maybe he didn’t understand that a slate is merely “a list of candidates proposed for nomination or election.” (Webster’s New World Dictionary.) Again, does he misunderstand the meaning of words or does he believe that his constituents don’t?
Whatever the case, I am now a “concerned” voter who will definitely vote to have some new leaders on council. I hope all will vote and join me, thereby sending a message to Formosa that we understood exactly what he was intending.
Joseph Ravick
Glacier Street
