To the editor,
Downtown is under attack. There are people living on the street, garbage and needles within eyesight daily. There is a new injection site and government-funded support buildings popping up everywhere.
My God, the count says there are only 600-800 people living on our streets. Build one big building outside the commercial and residential cores and let the supports be centred there. It makes sense. It is easier tracking with one centre how all our tax money is being spent and then audit the outfit, too. Better yet, let the government run it. They are supposed to be looking after all of us, not just 0.5 per cent of Nanaimo’s inhabitants, those on the street.
Let the well-paid and well-educated employees in the public service operate it so we the public know what’s being done and can ask questions. Not like non-profits, whom governments simply give our tax money to and they then can do what they want with little, if no follow-ups.
The free-for-all hurting our neighbourhoods must stop.
John Franklin, Nanaimo
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Drug-fuelled crime shows need for solutions
To the editor,
Hopefully it’s only a rumour that an upcoming announcement will confirm that the old Jean Burns site will become a bus exchange. If that happens, it will also confirm that the decision-makers have absolutely no idea of what they’re doing.
As lifelong Nanaimo residents, my wife and I have done our best to support the downtown-area businesses as we wait for improvements expected via the new hotel and other projects. If the bus exchange is plunked down in the middle of the main street it will of course negate any positives that had been anticipated. At that point we will give up as, I expect, will many others and the downtown will be lost indefinitely.
Too bad the people in charge are so lacking common sense and that their inadequacies can create such long-term damage.
K. McKenzie, Nanaimo
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Lift people onto their feet so that they can join workforce
To the editor,
The Victoria Crescent area is the worst it’s ever been. Promoting that a couple stores had to change locations from just half a block away, but failing to mention all the many other merchants that have closed or moved away because of the area’s deplorable conditions is simply lying. By saying mistruths you are putting families at risk.
Today, I decided to drive through the area, then parked and took a gamble by walking around. I saw a person next to a building shooting up, several others high with a discarded needle next to them. There were shopping carts galore, a person twirling around a big stick and hitting light poles, and garbage everywhere.
We the public can see how bad things are with our own eyes.
J.M. Winterman, Nanaimo
LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Those on the streets and victims of crime both deserve better
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