Dear Editor:
Politicians are flailing their arms trying to catch something that will produce more revenues, while they are turning a blind eye to the fact that growing a community bigger without spending controls in place will only compound the problem.
The first item under review should be the $200,000 a year the city of Summerland arbitrarily is spending on what at best could be described as a taxpayer funded lobby group, the Summerland Chamber of Economic Development and Tourism.
The money is paid to the chamber for providing input into the city’s planning and economic development committee, a service that would have been better provided by professional city staff that was laid off, ostensibly to save money.
The chamber is not a business — it’s a social club for local business people, and does not have the professional credentials needed at city hall.
By issuing no-fee memberships to all business license holders, the chamber has an unusually large and captive audience of supporters, today about 800, that can be mobilized to lobby city hall on issues of interest to the chamber, including putting a prison in our back yard.
Reflecting on the recent poll conducted by the city, we are allowed to entertain that the bulk of the more than 400 yes votes easily could have been contributed by the chamber .
The main ambition of any business community will always be to try and increase the customer base to do more business, for that reason the business community will always advocate growth.
An important part of city council’s mandate is to temper that ambition and to protect the city from exploitation by an overzealous business community.
Building a prison in anybody’s back yard is a huge issue, and the first thing our politicians should have given us a long time ago, is the assurance that the decision will be made by the people by virtue of a referendum ballot.
We also have to be mindful that public information meetings are not the same as, or substitute for, public or town hall meetings.
And let’s not waste time and money on a plebiscite, which is only an opinion poll.
It is a very important decision, and as citizens, it is our democratic right to make it.
Please give us that referendum ballot.
Andy Thomsen
Summerland