Scrub the sidewalks, keep downtown clean
Re: “Office vacancy rate downtown up sharply, remote work blamed,” July 24.
I had occasion to walk about downtown — not on Pandora Avenue, which is a notorious issue, but Douglas Street, between City Hall and Fort Street.
What particularly struck me was not only the homeless individual here or there huddling against the buildings, but the sidewalks, which are dirty and stained. Tellingly, even the glass of a bus stop shelter was broken.
It looks like a town whose council has given up — and that impression may account for the growth of office vacancy rates more than remote-work trends.
When New York City (where I spent part of my childhood) similarly deteriorated in the 1970s and early 1980s, the authorities — inspired by the Broken Windows Theory — launched a cleanup and repair of public areas, which helped stem the flight of residents from the city and turn the city around.
Twenty years ago, in an op-ed in this paper, I presented a dystopian portrait of Victoria in the 2020s if a casino would be permitted downtown.
While thankfully that has not happened, it might get that way in the next 10 years if the council’s current distraction from the important issues continues.
Scrubbing the sidewalks and keeping them clean would signal to everyone that Victoria is not on an irreversible decline.
Jonathan Stoppi
Saanich
Make downtown offices residential spaces
We are in a housing crisis and offices are empty because of working from home.
Why can these offices not be changed into apartments?
Working from home in economic times like we have now saves the employee a lot of money in gas, parking and other additional costs which come with driving to work every day.
And let’s not forget the positive environmental effect of not having thousands of employees driving into work every day, less gas used, better air quality and less chances of accidents.
And to be clear, a slacker at work is a slacker if working from home or in the office. Why punish people by ordering them back to the office?
We need more housing and converting offices into homes sounds like a good solution to me!
Petra Biedermann
North Saanich
Renters need protection from landlords
Re: “Landlords need protection from bad tenants,” letter, July 23.
I agree that there are bad tenants but what about bad landlords?
There are landlords that never fix anything, landlords that enter your suite illegally, landlords doing renovictions taking people out of their homes so they can rent them at higher prices.
David Knezacky
Victoria
Scratching our heads on prescription renewal
As with many elderly couples, we both have stable but different chronic health issues that require long-term (life) drug intervention.
Simple prescription renewal has been tedious. Lifelong prescription medications run out every few months for three to five medications each, and nothing but our demise is about to change that in terms of RX and dose.
However, every three months or even sooner, a simple RX phone order from each person requires a seemingly arduous process. The call or visit to renew doesn’t happen until: the pharmacy explains that we must consult or visit our physician (or have the GP telephone chat) to declare that medications have run out again (duh).
The process for a patient is: The pharmacist can advance a one-month extension but calls the GP to report the renewal timeline, then the GP calls or sees the patient to hear again the same renewal, the GP then faxes the prescription to the pharmacist, the pharmacist prepares it and calls the patient when the drugs are ready to pay and pick up.
Only a few months pass and then everyone does the same thing again. This could make some sense if the GP had concerns about the meds a patient is taking, but this is not the case.
Complicating the three-month timeline are pharmacy limits on what stock they have available, so some meds are on different three-month timelines meaning everyone involved is involved irregularly and more frequently!
No doubt this is common practice everywhere? We are scratching our heads with the human resources needed just to renew our stable lifelong essential medications here in Victoria.
Surely doctors have better things to do.
Sandra Hartley and Tim Allan
Victoria
Divisive rhetoric is hurting Langford
Despite ideas presented by citizens during the budget process for managing costs and increasing revenues, Langford council voted to increase the tax rate higher than staff recommendations.
Other councils in the Capital Regional District respected that residents are facing difficult economic times and worked to lower tax rates.
Under the previous council’s leadership, Langford became a desirable place to live, learn, work and play.
The divisive rhetoric and misinformation that pits homeowners, renters and businesses against one another is not how to build community, and only serves to demonstrate council’s lack of community knowledge and leadership.
It is standard practice, particularly during difficult economic times, to limit spending on items considered discretionary, such as training, excessive travel, pet projects and expensive consultants.
However, there are multiple examples of council’s inability and unwillingness to limit spending in these areas.
Additional policing was required due to a marked increase in crime under this council’s leadership, yet this council continues to cry foul that other levels of government are to blame.
It’s time for council members to take accountability for the overspending and their lack of leadership, knowledge and transparency, that has led to this tax increase and many other largely uninformed decisions — that continue to negatively impact Langford’s reputation and economic viability.
Ren Louie
Langford
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