Vote June 15

I regret the delay in posting. Real reality takes up a lot of time and rightfully pushes the virtual reality to the back burner.

Regarding the run up to the plebiscite on the civic centre, I have to say liked the editorial and the letter in the Edson Leader this week. As I have indicated before, I am always encouraged when people get organized and take action on an issue. It is necessary for our system to function properly.

I am not going to ask you to vote a particular way. The record will show that I have supported the proposal to this point, and also that I am of the view that we have to be conscious of the current economic reality. When casting your vote I only ask that you give consideration to both sides of the question.

Some thoughts I have about the matter, both for and against, are below.

One fundamental fact will remain, regardless of the outcome of the vote, and that is something will need to be done to address the lack of space and condition of the existing building. I think Councillor Zahara covered some of those issues on post he did a few weeks ago. We should also note that the economic reality could cause the project costs to actually be less than proposed.

At this time though, there is great uncertainty as to what the economic conditions will be in the near future. Would the proposed money or debt load be better directed to other needs or wants of the community? Or better not spent at all? Those are reasonable positions.

Regardless of the result of the vote, I think the benefit will be that good discussion has been sparked about what we want our community to become. I plan to do a post in the near future about how we could be positioning our community, both to make through the current events, and also for when the downturn ends. I think we need to ask ourselves some hard questions about what we want our community to be, and how we can get there.

Thanks for taking an interest civic matters and I look forward to any comments you may have.