Learn from Summerland

Dear editor: The public meeting scheduled for Jan. 30, to allow Peachlanders an opportunity to tell City Council what they think about the proposed language changes to the city’s official community plan could also be an acid test on how people are going to vote in the October municipal election.

The people of Summerland have been fighting a long-running battle with their town hall to protect the district from a number of proposed developments they absolutely do not want.

The mayor and council became involved with a developer who was going to build a seven-storey building, that would save the town from certain economic starvation.

Then the town aggressively lobbied the province to locate a 378-cell provincial correctional center right in the heart of Summerland, completely oblivious to the will of the people who did not want a jail in their back yard.

Another developer came along, and the town wanted to remove a large parcel of good quality farmland from the ALR to accommodate the developer, in exchange for a piece of land that had previously been removed from the ALR because it was not suitable for farm land.

The people attended the public forums in good faith, to express their opposition to all of those proposals.

There were at times more than 300 people at those meetings, telling the town what they did and did not want, and council consistently turned a deaf ear.

The Summerland mayor had the good grace to not seek re-election well ahead of the 2014 election to allow the people an opportunity to canvass the community for candidates.

The voters recognized the need for continuity and elected a two-term city councillor as mayor.

None of the incumbent town councillors were re-elected.

Andy Thomsen Peachland