Readers write -- A few beefs!

Thanks to the Eagle or Coldstreamer.ca for posting significant or relevant articles from the Morningstar advertiser on the website; it spares me from having to recycle paper and to subject myself unwelcome advertising! I notice the local readers of the Morningstar have gone silent on this blog, judging by the sparse input or commentary, which gives me the impression that the consensus opinion is “All iz Vell” [pronounced with an East Indian accent, as in the recent Bollywood movie hit, the 3 Idiots] in Coldstream. Local politicians and bureaucrats must be feeling quite secure and satisfied that they are doing a good job as a result of this silence. Alas, I have a few 'beefs' I would like to raise here, as it's a rainy day and a disengaged electorate makes me nervous if the elected are left unaccountable for their decisions and actions.

1. I was relieved to see that the unmowed buffer zone at Creekside park was going to be reduced; it was a longstanding irritant to dog owners struggling to find their dog droppings. However who thought that leaving the grass grow near the creek was going to stop the creek from being contaminated by dog feces? Were they dog owners?Did they use the [Dog] park? I think not because it did just the opposite, as the dogs prefer to do their business in the tall grass and in spite of their best intentions dog owners had difficulties finding and picking up the droppings.

2. Who has spoken up or done something about addressing a much larger and graver threat to the purity of Coldstream Creek, it's fish and it's contamination of Kal Lake drinking water, by the Coldstream Ranch's operations and feed lot situated beside the creek? No one, not a peep,not even by a society dedicated to the improvement of the Creek and Lake or by the Ministry of the Environment who are clearly not doing their job. What does this say? Is the ranch unaccountable by long standing tradition and that cows or ranchers trump or tramp over town people?

3. Whose idea was it to allow storm sewers to wash street filth directly into the creek and ultimately into the drinking water?

4. Why didn't school authorities try to discourage school age litter bugs playing at the skate board park beside the park and school from compulsively throwing away junk food containers onto the grounds adjacent to the creek ,thereby contaminating the riparian zone with a deluge of plastic litter. [Those kids should be made to clean up their mess by their teachers!]

5. Why was it necessary to cut down long standing Poplar trees above North Aberdeen Road? [These trees provided perches for raptors hunting in the meadows below.]

6. Finally, have you ever noticed how full the NORD parking lot is these days? How many bureaucrats do they need? Who is suppose to put controls on these people? It's probably out of control and an excessive drain on taxpayers who are forced to support an overpaid and under worked, nonproductive, administrative albatross or is it a local make work program?

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