City hall didn’t heed warnings

Dear editor: “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please:” —Mark Twain.

A study was undertaken to look into parking at the Penticton SOEC and the surrounding facilities. Citizens voiced concerns and offered warnings like: stop building there. Either the facts were distorted to suit city hall’s needs or the study was flawed because we have problems. We now have engagement, results to be ignored?

The same holds true of the Kinney Avenue apartment complex next to Parkway school. A traffic study was done, obviously by persons who lost their glasses and calculator. We were told there would be no impact on safety by the increased traffic and no increase of street parking. After our concerns were ignored, we have those problems and more.

Emails, phone calls and letters to the editor, starting in the spring, about problems in neighbourhoods and escalating petty crime, apparently didn’t show up on anybody’s statistical reports.

All this seems to prove city hall has learned nothing and was still not listening.

Penticton Economic Development Partnership is being formed. The perfect opportunity for distortion. Again the city is setting the priorities instead of simply asking each organization for an issue they face locally, complete with their solution involving other players.

Twelve groups with more to be added. The rhinoceros is said to be the work of a committee, a rather ugly, confused patch work of a beast, rather like Main Street.

The Parks and Recreation Committee concluded, so says city hall, that Lions Park needed an entire new site plan (Herald, July 30), but it’s not in the budget for 2018. Changes, to the old BMX track in Lions Park, have been on the radar for months if not years. Budget problems or