Points of discussion on the Faubourg Lac Brome project
Iwish to call into question certain aspects of the subject project following the information meeting of February 19, held at the Brome Lake Community Center.
• Voting on the project as has been presented — it has been suggested by council that those voting for or against the project will vote in each of several separate surrounding districts — from my knowledge this is incorrect — all the contiguous areas should vote as one district.
• Instructions about who is in each district and how to vote seem vague and not well publicized — these items must be very well pointed out and publicized.
• Drainage of the Foster plain from Doucet Road south surrounding Durrell Creek to the development will likely be a significant factor for parts of the Faubourg project in the spring time — many existing residents near Durrell Brook on this flood plain already have water problems, including basement flooding in the spring.
• Water sources available to those who wish to buy lots and build houses as part of the Faubourg project — the so called hydrological study which council and the promoter refer to as offering assurance that potable water sources is really a preliminary report was actually not, based on extensive site testing, which should have been carried out to provide a firm basis of confidence. It seems prudent that council direct the promoter to only recommend that artesian wells are the only fully reliable source of potable water.
It has been pointed out by Richard Price that the Faubourg development be an excellent opportunity to request Hydro Quebec to consider reconfiguring the power feed to the Foster area to eliminate using the line on the east side of Brome Lake as the source for Foster. The line on the east side is subject to several power disruptions due to the passing of that line through extensively treed areas all along Lakeside-rte. 243 from Foster to Knowlton and some of the branches of that line into parts of West Bolton. One solution could be connection to one of the lines from Waterloo to Autoroute 10 (where the present line from Knowlton terminates) — there could be other solutions, of course, and Hydro would evaluate those. Most unfortunately, Mayor Burcombe dismissed this idea saying that Mr. Price should call Hydro himself — this is a regrettable attitude on the part of the mayor — actually the council has much more authority to propose such a request than any single resident.
I hope that the above points will be taken into account by council as necessary items to consider in their considerable haste to approve the Faubourg Lac Brome project.
Foster “sneak peak” at our Fokker DVII biplane and other “trophies and treasures” in our War Museum. Presented by Caitlin Bailey, MLIS and director/curator of Montreal’s Canadian Centre for the Great War, the talk, is titled “The Business of War: Canadian Companies During World War I” and is summarized in the press release as follows:
“Businesses of all types and sizes participated in support of Canada’s war effort from the moment the Governor General officially declared war on Germany in the summer of 1914. Private-sector involvement in the First World War is usually portrayed as uniformly corrupt and inefficient, but the nature of this participation was actually much more diverse, with lasting consequences for the future of Canada’s industrial