Dear Editor:
Whether through the ill-timed, misplanned solar project or the new Taj Mahal swimming project, the current majority of Summerland council, led by the mayor, seems intent to divide the community.
The recent post by the mayor says that we must have a new pool to have community is false.
We have a pool. What we don’t have is a council interested in maintaining it and a council willing to invest in it.
As a former three-term council member on Vancouver Island, I was involved in two pool renovation projects. In 2009 three municipalities, forming the panorama recreation commission, voted to spend $11.9 million renovating the pool.
We added a freeform, leisure, pool, a slide, new hot tub and much more to an existing pool. The cost was $11.9 million divided by over 40,000 people.
The mayor and his megaproject majority on council are intent on building their legacy by building monuments to themselves.
As a businessman, I always look at how can I best use what I have.
They could’ve renovated. They chose not to.
They didn’t adequately maintain the facility over the last five years. They could’ve put together a community group of users and business people with experience to take a look at multiple options.
This council is trying to ramrod through a over $100 million project, ($50 million plus interest) not including the overruns each year.
The question I ask council is why? Why not look at other options? Why divide the community? Why something so big for such a small community?
We will still have the pool after Nov. 4 if people vote no. What we don’t have is a council that is worried about fiscal sanity and what the average person can afford.
All I’m asking is vote no and then let’s go back to the drawing board as a community and come up with something better other than this extremely expensive white elephant.
Put people with business and community experience together to come up with a project that fits our community. If they do that then the community will get behind them.
Ron Kubek
Summerland