Editor: Last fall, ballots were sent out to over 160 property owners on 232 Street, 48 Avenue and Fraser Highway, to see if they were in favour of receiving GVRD water from the new East Langley water supply line.
Each property received a cost estimate for the “benefit” of having it placed on their street, and some of the extra costs if they wanted to connect to it.
The petition was rejected by the voters, but no notification of the results were sent out to the property owner concerned, “because it costs money to send out such information”.
The real reason for this lack of information seems to be that staff is working on an agenda to ask council for another petition vote, this time excluding some of the areas that mostly voted no.
Whatever happened to open and transparent governance, with public consultation?
I realize that there are those who would like to receive this water, but that is no reason to impose these exorbitant costs on the majority of us who don’t need or want it.
With global warming, dropping water levels in the reservoirs and ever-increasing water restrictions, water has to be treated as a precious resource and saved for areas that need it most. This is not one of those areas.
If council approves the plan to ignore the first vote and proceed with a second one, then maybe all of the voters who voted no should be taken off the voting list, leaving those who want it to vote on a project with the costs recalculated and divided amongst them.
Anyone wanting to connect at a later date would then be subject to late-comer fees.
Those who think that receiving GVRD water will be a benefit should consider the wonderful taste of chlorinated water, with increasingly restricted use during the summer months.
Given council’s proven inability to keep tax and utility fee increases even close to the rate of inflation, a rapidly increasing annual cost for this product can be expected.
Maybe, in a show of concern for the taxpayers’ dollar, council will consider the unnecessary cost of another vote and just respect the wishes of the majority who voted no the first time.
Maybe.
Ken and Sharon Lind,
Langley