Editor:
I would like to know why on Earth the SCRD is asking citizens to take a survey about repairs to the hot tub at the Gibsons pool.
A couple of years ago the SCRD committed $250,000 for repairs to the aging Sechelt ice arena without feeling any need to survey taxpayers about exactly how much they should spend or whether the money should be taken from a) taxation b) community fundraising c) annual maintenance or d) I don’t support any source of funding. Nor were the $675,000 repairs to the Sechelt Aquatic Centre referred to a community survey. Not to mention that there’s been no public survey on the controversial $5-million expenditure at Chapman Lake.
The survey itself is ludicrously biased, clearly designed to elicit “no” as an answer. Or wait, perhaps we should survey Coast residents to ask if funding for a new fire truck in Gibsons should be taken out of the equipment budget for the Sechelt Fire Department! If the electoral areas can be nudged into squabbling with each other, no money would need to be spent at all!
It seems clear to me that the SCRD does not want to maintain a swimming pool in Gibsons and has been throwing up roadblocks every time money has to be spent on that facility. Since the aquatic centre in Sechelt costs a breathtaking $2.7 million a year to operate (that’s twice as much as the Gibsons and Pender Harbour pools combined), they would probably like people on the south coast to drive or bus to Sechelt.
Somehow we can afford two ice rinks – one in Sechelt and one in Gibsons – for the less than five per cent of the population who skate (Statistics Canada), but we can’t afford a hot tub that’s a recommended treatment for arthritis in a community where 52 per cent of the population is over 50 years old.
This survey is all wet. Just suck up the hot tub, SCRD.
Donna McMahon, Elphinstone
