Highlights from our ‘great conversation’
Arena, no zeros and Highway 63 were hottest topics in 2012
The passion of Journal readers for writing letters never ceases to astonish me.
How else should I feel when I discover a reader has fired off an email to the letters inbox at 1 a.m. on a weekend?
I have been letters editor here for the past eight months and during that time the newspaper has published more than 1,600 letters in print and posted many dozens of others online.
For me, three obvious hotbutton topics stood out over that period: the frustrating faceoff between Oilers owner Daryl Katz and city council over the proposed downtown arena, the battle among educators and parents over no zeros in Edmonton Public Schools and the drive to reduce the carnage on Highway 63 to Fort McMurray.
Certainly no other issue provoked stronger emotions than the arena impasse.
Some readers, like Russell Hirsch, supported the plan to build the new arena. “The downtown arena project excites me so much about coming back to live in my hometown once I finish university in Vancouver,” Hirsch wrote on Sept. 20. “Thanks to projects like the arena, Edmonton is going to be a vibrant, dynamic city.”
But the vocal majority of letter writers feel the proposed deal is too favourable to Katz.
“Katz made a great deal with city council to put taxpayers on the hook for a new arena, but at this late date he’s decided the deal is not good enough,” Susan Gent of St. Albert wrote on Sept. 26.
“Shame on Katz for biting the hand that feeds him, and shame on us for allowing him to do it.”
Perhaps Rhys Davies of Sherwood Park summed up the feelings of many Edmontonians when he wrote back on Sept. 15: “With about $5 billion in potential development downtown, all parties need to communicate and show leadership.”
The year’s other endless negotiation on thin ice, the NHL lockout, gave hockey fans more to grumble about.
Nathan Demchuk expressed the feelings of many on Dec. 8: “I would like to see a fan boycott of the NHL. I would not enjoy it but it would send an appropriate message that our loyalty and passion are not without limits.”
Letter writers love their hockey but an even bigger lightning rod this past year was the contentious no-zeros debate. When high school teacher Lynden Dorval was suspended and eventually fired by the Edmonton public school board for refusing to stop giving zeros for incomplete work by students, he became a hero to many Albertans.
“The no-zero policy at Ross Sheppard is preposterous and setting up students for failure,” Nicole Barbeau, a former student of Dorval’s, wrote on June 3.
“If our citizens are unable to truly work, then our best jobs will continue to be outsourced (overseas),” wrote Jillian Buriak on July 21. “No-zero policies represent the leading edge of the collapse of our standard of living.”
But not everyone felt that way. Joe Bower of Red Deer wrote on June 6 that “teachers should be less like judges-in-waiting and more like safe and caring allies.
“It takes courage not to punish students with zeros, and it takes real effort to see problems as an opportunity to teach and to learn.”
The fierce debate eventually led Edmonton Public Schools to propose a new district-wide policy that would give teachers the option of handing out zeros for missed work. The board is inviting public comment before it decides the matter in 2013.
A fiery head-on crash on April 27 that killed seven people on Highway 63 produced a stream of letters debating ways to make the asphalt lifeline to the oilsands safer.
Debate veered into such areas as poor driving habits, increased police enforcement, safer speed limits and even the idea of better rail service to Fort McMurray.
The furor led to a promise by the province to accelerate upgrades to the highway and a commitment in October to twin a 240-kilometre stretch by fall 2016.
Some of my favourite letters came from readers who got personal in their message.
Two of them were tied to an event that has caused generations of Edmonton residents to scan the skies on muggy summer days — the tornado of July 31, 1987.
Jason Manuel Carreiro recalled how he, his mother and sister were terrified when TV news in Brazil reported a tornado had “devastated the city of Edmonton in Canada.” His father had just returned to work in our city, leaving his family on vacation.
Within hours they learned he was one of the 27 people killed on “Black Friday.”
“To the other families who also mourn their losses, please receive my sympathy and love,” Carreiro wrote on Aug. 1.
And Juliette Champagne shared the story of her brother, Gerard, who was fatally injured in a farm accident the day before the tornado struck. Several of his organs were harvested for transplants, including one of his corneas that went to someone injured by flying glass in the storm.
“We miss Gerry dearly,” she wrote, “but find comfort in knowing his gifts live on in others.”
On Aug. 21, Helen Shea wrote about suffering a broken wrist and leg after being struck by a cyclist on a river valley trail. “The outcome has been costly to the health-care system and to me,” she reported. “The ability for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists to use our city’s roads and walkways safely is long overdue.”
Her letter triggered a wideranging discussion of rules, respect and etiquette on city trails, roads and sidewalks, and perhaps fostered better understanding among cyclists, motorists and pedestrians.
Another favourite letter came from Ann Hender, who told of the thrill of getting tickets to one of the Paul McCartney concerts at Rexall Place as a gift for her 70th birthday. “Now I can safely say,” she wrote on Dec. 4, “that’s it for me, I’ve seen everyone on my wish list.”
My own wish for the Journal’s letters page, once described as Edmonton’s longest-running conversation, is that it continue to be a marathon of talk.
For 2013, let us resolve to keep the conversation rolling.