Dear editor,
I am writing to express my concern and perhaps pose an opportunity for self-reflection to Mayor and Council regarding the apparent erosion of services in our community under their watch. As a topic of discussion around many water coolers as of late, colleagues at my workplace were pondering the services of our community that have fallen by the wayside in about the last 1.5 years. Here is a non-comprehensive list that was compiled in about one minute: Children’s Complex; Sunny Cove; Marina operations; Summer programs (Rec’ N Crew and specialty camps), Museum programming, Canada Day activities and perhaps others. All of these services were under the umbrella of the “Community Services” department. Are there now a lot fewer people employed? Has funding been shifted elsewhere?
Many citizens in the community understood the impacts of COVID-19 on services and the difficulties that 2020 presented inside a global pandemic. It is however, undeniable that under previous administrations of the Town, there was a concerted effort to offer programming in our community beyond sewer and roads, to promote a great community to live in. It was well documented that the Town was far less than co-operative to allow hockey and figure skating to proceed under the conditions that the NWHU was allowing this past season. It is troubling that in a matter of 18 months-ish, the services in our community have undergone such a notable attrition beyond the COVID influence. Many communities smaller than ours have either started many services or have a plan to restart. One has to hope that further degradation is not on the horizon for our community services. It truly begs the question “who is steering the ship”? And, where are the priorities of our leadership? Roads and sewers don’t exactly attract people who want to live in a community.
Thank you for the opportunity to express the concerns of many citizens.
Respectfully,
Jan Anderson
