Editor:
Re: White Rock prepares for $1m gateway, March 14.
This profligate, blatantly egotistical ‘vanity project’ is not mentioned in the city’s 2018-2022 Financial Plan that was approved by all members of council on Dec. 11.
Instead of directing the city’s overworked civil service to devote their already-scarce time and resources to facilitating yet another knee-jerk ‘monument to council’ project, council members should have directed that this $1 million be used for purposes that would have legitimate public benefits.
Here’s a few:
• Remedying damages caused by the May 2015 “waterfront clearcut”;
• Remedying the long-neglected tidal erosion of East Beach waterfront/ tourist areas;
• During the upcoming spring/summer/autumn months, paying for providing a free-to-the-public bus service to East Beach and West Beach from the White Rock Centre Bus Exchange (WRCBE) – that uses full-size, “low-floor” buses that are accessible by persons requiring mobility aids;
• Paying for the installation of large, prominent outdoor wayfinding signage and maps – in multiple languages – at the WRCBE, East Beach, West Beach and other commercial/ tourist/visitor areas;
• Paying for the installation of public electric-vehicle charging stations citywide, and especially in areas of the city that are frequented by visitors and tourists. Currently, there are zero public EV charging stations in the city;
• Persuading ‘car share’ companies – such as Car2Go, Zip Car, Evo Car Share and Modo Car Share – to provide services in White Rock/South Surrey.
For a change, members of White Rock council should put the public’s best interests ahead of what are, plainly, ego-motivated agendas to continue squandering millions of dollars of other persons’ monies – city funds – on aggrandizement monuments to themselves.
Roderick V. Louis, White Rock