Letters to the Editor: June 25, 2014

Time to live up to duties

Thank you Paul McMahon, for your clear, concise, and well reasoned opinion [“Taxpayer alert brings library into focus,” June 4]. It also suggests the question as to why City of Powell River mayor and council are so obviously opposed to the public’s reviewing and discussing the economics of this contentious project. Is there something our leaders don’t want us to know? Is there a hidden agenda?

Since honesty, openness and transparency are critical elements of effective leadership, mayor and council may want to rethink their current tactics. If they are living up to their legal, ethical and fiduciary responsibilities, it is time for our leaders to prove that they subscribe to the principles of honest, open and transparent government.

It would be like a breath of fresh air.

– Joseph Ravick, Glacier Street

The question needs to be asked: Do we want a new library, yes or no? [Library information gathering draws large crowd,” June 11].

As council proposes right now, the library referendum will be a combination question, either: Are you willing to support funding for a new library at Willingdon South (old arena site)? Or: Are you willing to support funding for the library at the Recreation Complex?

Many feel their only choice is between these two sites.

Council states if you don’t want it, then vote no for both sites.

Simplify it and first ask: Do you want a new library?

Call or mail your councillors.

– Gaye Culos, Marine Avenue

BC Ferries’ reduced Sunday service between Langdale and Horseshoe Bay is catastrophic [“Ferries return to new schedule,” May 14].

On Sunday, June 8, we arrived at Langdale an hour early for the 11:30 sailing. We missed the ferry as did three lines of waiting vehicles. The next ferry was at 2:45 pm. What message is BC Ferries sending local residents and tourists? Bad news sells fast. Why should tourists even consider visiting the Sunshine Coast with such poor ferry service?

The same day, guests from Europe had to wait for more than six hours for the ferry from Earls Cove to Saltery Bay. Sunshine Coast Tourism Association (SCTA) boasts an excellent rapport with the five regional districts and prides itself on selling the Sunshine Coast as a tourism destination. However, BC Ferries’ reduced travel services directly compete with SCTA’s and the five regional districts’ tourism goals and directly impacts local tourism business profitability.

Surely, it is time for SCTA to engage the five regional districts in a dialogue with the BC Liberal Government and BC Ferries Corporation to reverse the devastating effect of fewer scheduled runs, particularly now that the summer season is heating up. Advertising the Sunshine Coast is great, but SCTA leadership on the issues that affect Coast Tourism Travel is imperative.

– Colin F. MacLean, Roberts Creek

There is a mountain in my city that I have been visiting for 17 years [“Meeting provides overview of strategic plan,” April 17, 2013]. For the first nine years I was a visitor in Powell River, and would go to the mountain for walks with my young son and his Powell River cousins. We watched pileated woodpeckers hammering away at dying maples, the same maples that would sprout gorgeous white oyster mushrooms in the spring. We saw women from Tla’amin (Sliammon) Nation pulling long salal branches from the thick undergrowth; we picked huckleberries and spotted a barred owl watching us. We would climb up the stairs to the wide open granite bluffs to take in the breathtaking view of ocean, islands and Powell Lake.

Later I ended up living close by the mountain. At night the barred owls screeched and called; by day it was a haven for hikers, dog walkers, joggers, mushroom pickers and nature lovers. Lately a cougar and her kittens have been spotted roaming the mountainside. Black bears wander along their berry-picking paths. My son got older; he and his friends took to the trails on their bicycles. Families and elders came to enjoy slow walks on the winding trails—some steep, some level making access easy. I have walked there alone and cherished the symphony of bird song swirling around me.

Valentine Mountain is the green heart of Powell River. It is a rich and diverse mature second-growth forest. There are grandfather trees that three people can barely wrap their arms around. Moss, ferns, indigenous plants and wild flowers, water trickling down fern-carpeted boulders...this is a magical place for discovery and connecting with nature.

Valentine Mountain is going to be logged. Best estimates are within the year. Do the shareholders of Island Timberlands care about our mountain? No, they don’t even know it exists. But we do, and if we don’t speak up it will be gone. We are building community support to try to save our mountain, for the animals, for our children, for our community. For more information, please go to our Facebook group, Citizens Concerned about Logging on Valentine Mountain.

– Devon Hanley, Manitoba Avenue

I am writing about the letter from Murray Dobbin who argues that Catalyst Paper Corporation Powell River division should pay more taxes and that the community’s contribution has been insignificant [“Subsidy hurts taxpayers,” June 4].

I believe that the combined effort of many groups made a real contribution toward keeping the company and our mill operating. If we all had the same attitude as Dobbin (in other words, everyone should pitch in but me), the results may have been quite different and we would all be in a lot of trouble.

The mill has carried a huge tax burden for decades and deserves the support of the community it built while trying to stay viable in this very troubled industry.

Our real challenge is to learn to live within our means rather than depending on the huge cash cow we’ve become accustomed to.

– David Fisher, MacGregor Avenue

Since moving here, I’ve heard the opinion the Internet is making libraries obsolete, so why spend money on a new library [“Library information gathering draws large crowd,” June 11]?

I took our grandkid to the library just after moving here. We finally found it after a couple of passes and made our way to the kids’ corner.

The staff had worked so hard to make that sorry, dark and very tired corner of the library feel welcoming to little kids, it broke my heart.

After we asked about storytime, we were told it was held not in the library, but at another place. The program had become so popular, it had outgrown the very inadequate space in that dark corner.

I’ve heard the arguments about taxpayers’ money, costs and balance sheets and whether something is extravagant. Wealthy people like Brooks and Scanlon built places like Dwight Hall to give the masses access to civilizing and uplifting things like concerts, dance, drama, music, arts and crafts, lectures and yes, the first community library. Such things made people happier, healthier and ultimately more responsible workers.

The community has found the money in the past for choirs and skates and swings and pools. So why not continue to find it for something as important as a library?

My wife and I spent more than 30 years in education. We’ve seen kids in all shapes and sizes and abilities. The kids who love to read and write and think are the ones who get where they want to go. A wonderful library close to where they live gets all these great kids on their way.

I am also sure that there were many people at the time who thought that the original library site, Dwight Hall, was a waste of money; but look at how everyone has enjoyed this cultural venue over the years.

Give the present library staff a chance. They are so capable, but are so restricted by the current building.

We’ll pay the taxes as long as we know the money is spent on something this important. We need to fight for our kids and their futures.

– Lanny Marentette, Manson Avenue

Once again, spring is upon us and once again teachers are to be seen in lines carrying pickets [“Parents jostle to deal with strike,” June 18]. What do they want? They work only 10 months of the year, have weeks of holidays at Christmas and Easter; they are well paid and enjoy generous pension and medical benefits. They’re so greedy. They have their students for only five hours a day. The job is so easy; anyone could do it. Yet, teachers’ colleges are not confronted with swarms of applicants. It is indeed a mystery.

What isn’t a mystery is why the teachers are on picket duty. The answer is politics. Bill van der Zalm, as premier, was a master at it. He destroyed the BC Teachers’ Federation. He legislated the principals out of it and told the teachers that if they wanted to deal with the government they would have to become a union. They became a union.

Like abortion and same-sex marriage, teachers are a hot-button issue. Picking a fight with the teachers is sure to get citizens all worked up. After all, everyone has spent years in school and knows all about the education system.

Driving the teachers to strike is, politically, a splendid diversionary tactic. When people are feeling righteous and indignant at the selfish teachers, their attention is distracted away from unpopular legislative practices such as the extensive cuts in services to the poor, the needy, the unemployed, the single moms.

I’m a teacher myself and have always taken pride in being a member of the world’s second oldest profession. Whether or not teachers perform a more essential service than do members of the oldest profession is a question some folks take to be moot.

– Jack Christian, Douglas Bay Road