I would like to express how disheartened and disappointed I am that in the name of transparency and accountability, Summerland citizens and mayor and council are demonstrating a lack of skill in the debate concerning the RDOS proposed compost facility.
Visit the Summerland Municipal website at www.summerland.ca and you will read: “Summerland is a magical place to live and visit.”
Who among us that live in Summerland has not been transfixed at the late sun painting a perfect picture in green and gold in Prairie Valley on a fall day; or being temporarily intoxicated by smelling the first ripe peach; or mesmerized by the placid reflections on our perfectly calm lake?
Every day I am grateful to live here, to meet former students who want to raise their children here; or to meet new residents living their retirement dream in their last forever home here.
Go a little further into the same website and you will read numerous signed letters from Summerland citizens filled with questions and comments to Mayor Peter Waterman and councillors, asking for information, demanding opportunities for public consultation, and openly expressing discontent and mistrust in Council decisions on recent development proposals and projects.
At the Aug. 28 Council meeting, CAO Lynda Tynan told some 100 onlookers in attendance that Summerland council and staff members have been subject to public anger expressed in phone calls, emails and online correspondence, anonymous graffiti and unsigned mailouts.
Further some of these comments have contained inappropriate threats.
This does not sound like a “magical place to live or visit”.
Any public situation can come this point when frustration leads to anger and no one can sort out the facts from opinion. When voices are raised, positions are taken and people see it as a right to express themselves.
I would like to propose that when our mayor and council are elected, they give over their individual platform promises, visions and personal agendas for making our community their idea of a better place to live, to the bigger agenda of service, attention to changing needs in the community and communicating with its citizens.
Votes on community-wide issues must be based on thorough debate after councillors and citizens have had access to the facts, time to study the researched benefits and pitfalls, in language everyone can understand.
Council meetings must have sound systems that work, visual or published agendas to follow and enough seating for the public.
I would like to propose that Summerland citizens demonstrate support for our council’s decisions by becoming informed.
Talk to your neighbours about their concerns, read local papers, visit the municipal web site, write your concerns and questions to mayor and council and attend council meetings.
Above all have the courage to sign your name, to come forward and defend your point of view, face to face, with those you disagree with and respectfully listen to their argument. Important community issues deserve your time to learn the facts, to debate the issues and to come to consensus on.
If discontent were a coin, and anger the face on one side, then fear would be on the other.
At some time, we all fear losing Summerland as “a magical place to live, or visit.” If this is the continued vision for Summerland, leadership on all sides will make it happen.
We can all do better in this debate.
Kathy Smith is a Summerland resident who is concerned about the proposed RDOS compost facility.