Bell Island’s signage should not have been removed

After a two-year global shutdown due to COVID, this summer finally allowed some kind of normal living, which included tourists to travel.

The N.L. Liberal government advertised Come Home Year 2022 - yeah! Ads were everywhere.

No, wait! Bell Island was not included in this initiative.

Over the past month, the Department of Transportation removed all signage from our roads, quoting the Newfoundland and Labrador Regulations 85/99: Highway Sign Regulation, 1999, where the speed limit is 60 kms and over.

Bell Island's speed limit is 40 km/h. We were told this would be done in every community.

Guess what? No other community was touched.

These signs were originally paid in part to print and to install by the Liberal government.

You ask why there was this sudden action from the Department of Transportation.

These signs were originally paid in part to print and to install by the Liberal government.

This action was purely vindictive, personal and political on the part of an employee/employees within that department with personal friends or an association with a group of what Bell Islanders call "rich boys with their rich toys who are using our airfield (and, by the way, are doing damage) as a racetrack with their race car events."

That group encountered some opposition from residents and town council and now Bell Island is being targetted by their friends within the Department of Transportation.

Bell Island's slogan to welcome friends and tourists should read, "Welcome Home 2022, no signage to help you on your way, get lost!"

Very sad, indeed.

It is high time Premier Andrew Furey took this matter in hand, find out the person or persons responsible for this insult and misjustice and take the appropriate action to resotre our signage and our community's endeavour to flourish.

Kathleen Crane Bell Island