To the Editor,
Council candidates? They seem a rather homogenous lot. What they don’t seem to realize is that we likely face years of on again-off again recession, price inflation, growing structural unemployment, forced governmental austerity and constantly falling house prices.
Any investor should know this. Any business owner no doubt does.
The economic climate in the Alberni Valley is already lethargic at best. I can’t see how any small business owner can make a go of it.
The streets are full of the impoverished and those on government assistance, coupled incongruously with some relatively wealthy retirees and government employees.
We are going to need someone willing to reduce the size and scope of civic government. To cut property taxes and services, to downsize staffing levels or start reduce salary/pension/benefit expenditures.
Homeowners directly pay for this stuff; renters do not. And homeowners are stretched to the limit now. But none of this is being talked about.
And being new here, I’m curious about why we are forced to engage a lot of unwanted services here. Why can’t I take my own garbage to the dump? My own recycling? And why do residents have to pay toward a scarcely-used bus system which runs 90 per cent empty most of the time?
And why can’t I keep chickens in my yard, a la Vancouver and Victoria? Get out of the way, council!
Does anyone out there have a world view? Or do all council candidates get their input from Global TV, the real estate boards and the Vancouver Sun?
Chris Fulker,
Port Alberni