To the editor:
Most of the negative opinions about the rail trail through Lake Country seem to focus on two factors that have nothing to do with the rail trail itself.
First, there’s the argument that $2.6 million could be better spent on roads, sewers, or water systems.
Second, there’s hostility directed at District of Lake Country Council for its handling of the Alternative Approval Process, a feeling that our politicians are not being honest with us about costs and potential problems.
Neither of these is sufficient reason to vote no.
Voting no to punish this council, or previous councils, is just plain short-sighted. You’re not punishing the council; you’re punishing your children, your grandchildren, and their grandchildren.
Those future residents of Lake Country will not thank you for having kept a few roads paved, or for having upgraded sewage or water treatment facilities. Physical infrastructure will have to be upgraded constantly anyway. A hundred years from now, it will make no difference to the community whether Lake Country kept a few of its roads paved in 2015.
But the existence of public parkland all the way around Wood Lake will make a huge difference to life in Lake Country for those future generations.
Imagine Vancouver without English Bay, New York without Central Park, London without Hyde Park. If we let this possibility get away from us, our descendants will look back and say to us: Shame on you!
To vote no is to vote against your own grandchildren.
Jim Taylor, Okanagan Centre