People have no voice with this city council

Editor: Re: Another Highrise? Ho-Hum (The Daily Courier, June 27, page A3)

The writer of this article wonders why there appears to be no interest from the public in the new highrise proposal for Water Street.

Maybe it’s because people have come to realize that there is no point in opposing any of the projects the city initiates.

Oh yeah, they have their little charettes and ask for our input, but they really don’t care what the citizens want or need for their city or their neighbourhood. This council just goes ahead and does whatever they want. Mayor Colin Basran and the bunch are ruining Kelowna and there is nothing we can do about it.

The future of this beautiful place is looking grim, with nothing but highrises and strip malls cluttering up the place. How ugly! How unimaginative!

Of course, developer money talks a good line and soon we Kelowna will be just like Maple Ridge, with horrible gridlock and nowhere to go to get out of it. I wonder if any of our councillors have spent any time in bigger cities like Vancouver. Have they noticed the mistakes that have been made? Why can’t they learn from them and curb some of this development?

Saying that we are growing “up” instead of “out” is a fat lie. We are sprawling in all directions.

Our only hope is that the current mayor and council are booted out in the next election. We need people in City Hall who realize that they are working for us, the citizens of Kelowna. We are the ones who have to live with the messes they make. We pay their salaries; they should be doing what we say . Removing roads and beach parking isn’t going to make things nicer for us. They even took out the bus route where I live, and now I have a 12-block walk to catch a bus.

Thanks for nothing!

S. Kelly, Kelowna