Huge green space set for paving, reads the headline.
A neighbourhood concept plan that will bring 9,000 new people – in Grandview Heights is 100 per cent opposed by the city’s own ecological management study. Surrey City Council is set to once again bulldoze a forest the size of Redwood Park.
The environmental advisory committee asks to meet with Surrey council and their own council sloughs them off. The mayor says it’s too early to hear from the ecological advisory committee. How can it ever be too early to hear from a committee given the task of protecting our environment?
In Surrey, the city council appoints you to a committee and then refuses to listen to you.
Could it be that thousands of homes, and their building, and the taxes, and the roads, and the all-out needed greed by development fuels this council’s decisions? Is it windowdressing? The council decides to appoint environmental advisory committee, then choose to ignore it.
Our whole planet is now in the throes of those people and those mistakes that were made by others who ignored the environment. Global climate change, historic rainfall, deadly tornadoes, flooding, landslides. When do we start to learn?
Now I know we can’t solve the whole world’s environmental problems in the City of Surrey, but once upon a time we were known as the City of Parks, that was when it was more important to be livable than it was to be voted best mayor in the world. We had a proud environmental record, the city believed in green space and we believed in quality education we believed the citizens had a say.
It is unacceptable to have a mayor and council who refuse to listen to its own committees because they won’t give them the answers they want to hear. Al Schulze, the chair of the EAC, deserves more respect; our environment deserves more respect.
Sure we can cram thousands of more people in the city of Surrey. Sure we can build more and more townhouses, and more and more condensed development. But where are our priorities?
People I talk to say their priorities are livability, protecting the environment, and doing the best they can to try to have the best life possible.
I am not talking about saving every tree that ever grew in Surrey. But we should save at least some of the best. Why can’t we develop in a way that allows more trees to stay?
Gary T. Robinson
Surrey Civic Coalition candidate
More trees redundant in Sunshine Hills
Can anyone explain to me why good tax dollars were spent on increasing the tree canopy in Sunshine Hills in North Delta?
I cannot imagine how or why anyone would consider such a ludicrous and wasteful use of taxpayer money. If you have ever driven through Sunshine Hills you are already aware of the vast amount of trees in our area. Why The Urban Forest, Beautification & Boulevard Tree Planting Program would identify our area as in need of more trees is just completely beyond me.
Mayor Jackson defended this program by stating that dollars were received by Delta as funding assistance from the province, as if that should make the use of our hard earned tax dollars the right thing to do.
As you drive down Lyon Road you will have a hard time discerning where the new trees have been planted until you get up close, some of them are planted right under much larger trees, under power lines and in yards which have a significant number of trees already on their property. I sent these photos plus many more to our mayor and asked her to sincerely defend this waste of our money, but she has not deemed to respond which just leads me to believe that we need more responsive people to represent us and use our tax dollars for more deserving programs. I for one will be speaking with my vote this fall, I hope you do too.
Yvonne Gell Winder
Delta