Gardeners or police officers?
Re: 鈥淰ictoria to add 34 full-time workers,鈥� Feb. 23.
I鈥檝e been largely impressed with the work of our new council. As a wheelchair user who tries to cross the bridge several times per week to fully enjoy our city, I feel the need to share my street-level observations.
I try to engage as best I can with less fortunate people who spend most of their day surviving on our streets. I鈥檝e learned which panhandlers to steer clear of and which hours are safest on certain blocks. What appears to be affecting our overall sense of safety are alcohol, soft drugs and harder drugs.
I鈥檝e had several encounters these past few months in which I felt I could handle the situation, only to find otherwise normally coping individuals flaring with irrationality. I worry for the tourists and our less able citizens living downtown.
All this to say, we enjoy our beautiful city, but I would gladly trade city gardeners for police officers.
Peter Foran
Songhees
Council are stewards, not masters
Re: 鈥淔ree parking is going away,鈥� editorial, Feb. 22.
The editorial says: 鈥淲hile many bemoan city council鈥檚 penchant for social engineering, training a new generation to love the bus will pay off in the long run.鈥�
It鈥檚 weird that Victorians seem to hear about controversial (read: likely unpopular) resolutions only after council passes them. While the end might be noble, such means are unjustifiable.
鈥淪ocial engineering鈥� is a greasy way to say: 鈥淲e don鈥檛 care what you think or want. We know better than you. So sit down, shut up and be thankful you even get to vote twice a decade.鈥�
People aren鈥檛 dogs. We don鈥檛 need training. We need councillors who treat citizens like peers, and who act as Victoria鈥檚 stewards, not its masters.
Doug Stacey
Victoria
Council needs to fund police department
Re: 鈥淰ictoria to add 34 full-time workers,鈥� Feb. 23.
This is the first time I have written a letter to the editor. I don鈥檛 object so much to Victoria adding more desk jobs, as my concerns are more about police department budget limits and about the safety of Victoria鈥檚 citizens and visitors.
I work in Victoria and feel afraid every time I鈥檓 in the city. Almost every day on the street where I work, I see and hear threatening events, usually involving the police.
I won鈥檛 bike downtown anymore, fearing my bike will be stolen or damaged. While taking the bus last year, I saw a man waiting for the stoplight at Government and Fort streets clubbed from behind by a maniac on drugs. He hurt several people.
Another time on the bus, I saw a rider ejected for yelling racial slurs at another rider. I am now reluctant to go downtown to my favourite restaurants, theatre, festivals, symphony (moving to the University of Victoria next year due to rent increases at the Royal Theatre) and for shopping. This is not the first time for Victoria police cuts, as I recall last year liaison officers were cut due to Esquimalt refusing to pay its share.
Victoria city council, wake up and fund your overworked police department.
Paul McGroarty
Saanich
Saanich residents trapped on cul de sac
I live on a hilly cul de sac in Saanich. On Feb. 14, I phoned Saanich about plowing because nobody was getting in or out of the cul de sac unless they had four-wheel drive.
I explained that we had an old couple of almost 90 in one of the homes. Saanich said the seniors should get on the bus if they needed anything. Hmmm, half a kilometre walk to the bus stop.
The mailman got stuck and chewed up the old couple鈥檚 lawn. No more mail delivery. The compost-truck driver refused to come up. Everyone with a car got stuck and had to leave their cars down at the park.
The most bizarre thing happened on Feb. 15. Saanich came by and plowed out the tennis-court parking lot, but did not plow our street. By Feb. 17, we had two tracks up and around the cul de sac, but the centre median of snow would have taken out a car鈥檚 undercarriage.
I hired a guy with a four-wheel drive to break down the centre median and then I spent three hours shovelling it off the road. Most people are older on my street and can鈥檛 take on the stress of heavy shovelling.
Brian Masuch
Saanich
Strata residents can fight new rule
Re: 鈥淐ommon property rule changes must be ratified,鈥� column, Feb. 13.
A good start for Nina R. and her aggrieved residents would be to make a submission to their strata council under Section 34.1 of the Strata Property Act to get this draconian action reversed.
Perhaps arrangements could also be made to charge a refundable deposit for the use of the rec room to be underwritten by the event organizing committee. This should ensure a proper cleanup is done at no expense to the strata corporation.
The strata bylaws probably have a section dealing with submissions.
Under no circumstances should owners allow themselves to be pushed around by council, who are, after all, only 鈥減rimus inter pares.鈥� I also suggest they try to get lots of supporters out to the meeting at which their submission is made, many of whom sign the application so that plenty of people can speak if necessary.
Don Startin
Victoria
Police-budget cap seems to lack logic
Re: 鈥淣ine police jobs face axe under budget cap: chief,鈥� Feb. 15.
There appears to be lots of money for the bike lanes, but not enough money for keeping our city safe. Any logic to that?
June Sharman
Victoria
What to do when you get it so wrong
The short answer is to rescind the speculation tax and start afresh.
The NDP/Green alliance has failed miserably in its attempts to reduce property speculation, increase low-income rental capabilities or make rental housing more affordable.
How would one prioritize these adjectives describing the effect and consequence of this government and this stupid tax? Deaf/illegal/invasive/onerous/unaffordable/unconstitutional/anti-91原创/unwieldy?
Letters to MLAs are stacked up and replied to, if at all, with form-letter insipidness.
By taxing fellow 91原创s who own an asset in B.C., Premier John Horgan is riding the highest wave of hypocrisy. He and Finance Minister Carole James are truly not showing B.C.鈥檚 good side with this tax.
Morris Nels
Victoria
Rejection of moratorium on herring is reckless
Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson鈥檚 rejection of MP Gord Johns鈥� request for a moratorium on the herring-roe fishery planned for the waters around Hornby Island in March of this year is reckless.
He bases his decision on 鈥渟cience and evidence鈥� when he knows that DFO鈥檚 science concerning herring populations has proved wrong six times in the past 13 years, and that its 鈥渉istoric levels鈥� benchmark is a number based on a population that had been commercially fished for 70 years before.
The protected waters of the Strait of Georgia are the last remaining major 91原创 herring spawning area from Washington state to Alaska. These herring are the indispensable base of the marine food web. They don鈥檛 belong to Wilkinson or DFO. They belong to the future, to the people of Canada.
They belong to creation, to the countless creatures, from migrating sea birds to humpback whales, the salmon, cod, halibut, rockfish, sharks, cetaceans and sea mammals that depend on them for essential food. They also belong to all the recreational, sport, commercial and tourist fisheries.
The herring have to be allowed to spawn, and live to spawn again many times in order to restore their normal population, and also renew all the species that depend on them.
There needs to be a moratorium on the herring-roe fishery now, or at the very least a drastic cut in the quota the fishery can take from this last remaining population.
Wilkinson should amend his decision.
Bill Lane
Royston
Saanich lags behind in housing development
The furor over the legitimate eviction of the University of Victoria students from a Saanich rental house will certainly make for impassioned public meetings. Some of the disingenuous ideas floated about the bylaw bear closer scrutiny.
Tinkering with the meaning of family is a dead end because the definition is well ensconced in federal and provincial law. The Residential Tenancy Act shouldn鈥檛 even bear consideration from our new council, excepting its precedence over Saanich bylaws.
Left for consideration is the number of tenants in a residence. Serious background research/information will be needed to take into account the community plan and the services required to safely accommodate greater numbers in single-family dwellings in residential neighbourhoods and prevent abuses of tenants, landlords and local residents.
Is this consideration justifiable? What is wrong with the existing bylaw?
All of this skirts the real issue. Saanich needs to attract developers who will build safe, affordable rental accommodation. The municipality is already behind the curve and putting too much stock in up-market condominium developments. Placing the burden of increased rental space on the individual homeowner is not a solution.
The municipal website provides direction about having a legal rental suite in a home and allows the building of garden suites, but these measures do not increase rental stock enough or fast enough. As the population grows and enjoys greater longevity, rental space is diminished if high-density rental accommodation is not built to adapt to this change.
Esther Miller
Saanich
Adults not great at voting, either
Re: 鈥淭eenage brains are not ready to vote,鈥� letter, Feb. 17.
Have adults been making intelligent voting choices? I would say, in all too many cases, no. One does not have to go far back in history to find examples.
A recent instance of young people stepping up to the mark is the campaign against gun violence being carried out by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Florida. And many young people, children even, are speaking out and organizing protests on behalf of the environment and global warming.
Yet another example are the Kielburger brothers, whose column is published every Sunday in this newspaper. Back in the last century, Craig, who was then a teenager, brought the world鈥檚 attention to child labour.
The teen years are a good time for educators to make their charges attuned to and excited about the responsibility of voting. At the very least, young activists deserve to be listened to.
Mary Andrews
Victoria
Drive, walk and ride safely
Last Sunday, in the early evening during the heavy snowfall, we were coming home from Metchosin, which was closing down. It was a slow but manageable drive, as long as we drove according to the weather conditions.
Drivers need to slow down, but pedestrians also need to realize that vehicles can鈥檛 stop if you walk out on a crosswalk, and the road is covered with snow/ice, or in other seasons with water.
I am saying this because that night, we had to hit a curb because a pedestrian decided to walk out on a snowy crosswalk, expecting us to be able to stop. We were driving slowly, but our vehicle could not respond to what this dark-clad pedestrian expected, I guess.
To avoid hitting him, we drove into the curb, which cost us more than $500 in repairs to protect him. As we sat at the curb, he gave us the furrowed-brow 鈥渟tinkeye鈥� to mete out blame.
We are all responsible for personal safety and to think about what our actions mean.
By the way, we are very experienced winter drivers with a lot of years logged in the south and in the Yukon. We can accept responsibility for what we do, but have difficulty with what others do.
Please drive, walk and ride safely. We are all in this together.
David Greig
Victoria
The term for voters is 鈥榝unctional apathy鈥�
Re: 鈥淧ut some thought into casting ballot,鈥� letter, Feb. 8.
The letter-writer is creative, descriptive and correct in many ways. I agree. The scenario he lays out and the term he dances around is 鈥渇unctional apathy.鈥� There are many negative consequences of starting down the path of trying to use such a system of elections, but I can鈥檛 be bothered to indulge in analysis of such matters.
Max Miller
Saanich
Science says project is not needed
Re: 鈥淥thers love to bring up Victoria鈥檚 sewage,鈥� editorial, Feb. 3.
There has been a lot of sludge-slinging lately about pipelines and Victoria not dealing with its sewage 鈥減roblem.鈥� What everyone seems to forget in all of this is that the science says we are doing more harm with the sewage-treatment project than we would if we just left it alone.
On the one hand, we want to stop something that will bring jobs and money to our economy, albeit with some risk, and we went ahead with a project guaranteed to do more harm than good.
Jack Trueman
Brentwood Bay
How about exercising some common sense?
Re: 鈥淰ictoria council puts a rush on traffic calming,鈥� Feb. 7.
With total disbelief, I observe the reckless behaviour of pedestrians while they cross our streets. Whether at crosswalks or street corners, too many pedestrians take a cavalier approach to their lives, just stepping off the curb without a glance in either direction.
This exercise is engaged in by not only cellphone junkies but responsible-appearing adults in business suits who are not on cellphones. It is the height of stupidity.
I also am convinced I am the only person in the province who sticks out her hand to signal to drivers that I intend to cross at a crosswalk. When I mention this to people, they say they would be embarrassed. Really? How? By Whom?
And how about able-bodied pedestrians who, though traffic is heavy, meander across slowly, holding up drivers who would like to make a righthand turn. Why can鈥檛 they cross assertively, step lively even and help traffic move along instead of holding it up unnecessarily? Is this some kind of childish power trip?
I agree drivers need to slow down. They need to pay attention. They also need to remain stopped at the crosswalk until the pedestrian has safely reached the opposite curb (few do this and I have even been passed as I waited for the pedestrian).
No amount of traffic calming is going to take the place of following the simple rules we were taught as children. Stop. Look both ways. Listen before crossing the street. Kindergarten stuff.
Joyce Hubert Hodd
Victoria
