Editor:
Re: People movers at beach studied, Sept. 21.
With regard to the idea of redoing the beach and its various proposals, the idea of a building on the pier is great and it should be in the style of the old customs house that was there till the 1950s. It can be used for community events, exhibitions for the museum and the city can rent part of it out to a restaurant.
Transportation needs to be improved. And while gondolas sound great, parking is a huge issue for tourists and residents alike. Perhaps a multi-storey parking lot with the gondola starting from there and terminating at the pier is possible. This same idea is in operation in Portland and it seems to be very popular, and I think would be a great boon for White Rock’s tourism industry.
A shuttle bus up and down the hill would also be a great boon for the beach, if it ran frequently and till reasonably late at night. Perhaps a pilot project of this could be implemented during the summer.
For tourists using the bus, information on getting to the beach could be improved, as it’s very confusing for them and inconvenient.
On another subject, White Rock has very few houses that I would be bothered to save, but the city refuses to save two 1917 houses because it would cost $3.5 million (Too expensive to save century-old homes: city, Sept. 21).
If they’re on commercial land, then saving the buildings and renting to business such as coffee shops and law offices would be a great treasure to the White Rock area as a whole. Towns such as Carmel, Calif. and Murrayville in Langley have repurposed such heritage buildings and benefited from this. This has lured tourists to their communities and spend their dollars at these businesses.
Dana Gill, White Rock
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Re: City’s vision needs a closer look, Sept. 28 letters.
When I learned last fall that the mayor suggested to connect uptown and downtown White Rock with a funicular railway (Future looks ‘bright’, Oct. 9, 2015), I wrote that this idea was already on the docket in 2008 when tabled at one of the committee meetings.
It was agreed for me to follow through, and I had several meetings with representatives of European companies – Swiss, German and Austrian – who design, engineer, build and, in some cases, operate them worldwide. I have been on many of them around the globe.
They asked for some details about the gradings involved; I waited for more than eight weeks to get an answer from one of the two engineers who represented the city at this committee and finally gave up.
I was informed last Oct. 15 that the mayor was not aware of the initiative; he thanked me for bringing It to his attention and he has asked the city engineer to contact me. That call finally came at the end of January.
I advised the caller he was too late. In my environment, correspondence/calls are answered within 48 hours.
In 2008, the city was offered a free in-depth study for a permanent uptown downtown connection, a unique tourist attraction, a detailed budget including alternatives and engineering works. This is how European companies operate.
Instead, a management consulting company was hired.
Reminds me of the sad story some years ago when, on the advice of another management company, the City of White Rock spent close to half a million dollars on new light posts for the pier (White Rock feels pier pressure, Sept. 22, 2011).
Wolfgang Schmitz, White Rock