I never voted for the multi-purpose leisure centre. Now with the very large deficit let’s modify it to suit the other buildings required by city administration.

I moved to St. Albert in 1996, knowing taxes were a little higher, but not as high as this council wants now. A referendum is needed to decide whether to modify or sell Servus Place.

If council wants to raise taxes (easy way out), do it at the same rate as my pension increases. Remember, you can’t have everything you want or I would live somewhere else.

Jack Bell, St. Albert

Bill could generate abuses

The Stephen Harper Conservatives are at it again, quietly working their undercover agenda in Parliament with the tactic of bundling disparate legislation to push through onerous changes. In this case, Harper is forcing changes to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by bundling them with his budget implementation bill.

The changes would give the immigration minister arbitrary power to decide who gets into Canada and who doesn't, enabling the minister to deny citizenship even if an applicant meets all criteria for immigration. The minister will also be able to determine winners and losers based upon "category" of person or country of origin — criteria with the potential to generate immigration abuses similar to those of the past, like Canada's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923 or the 1911 Order in Council that banned immigrants belonging to the "Negro race".

The Conservatives would have us all believe they just want to address the huge backlog of immigration applications, a number that has grown by 200,000 since Harper took power. The truth is the changes apply only to applications received after February 2008, and won't do a thing to reduce the existing backlog. More immigration officials at home and abroad are needed to do that.

What the proposed changes will do, however, is enable the federal government to change the focus of Canadian immigration away from family units that have traditionally helped build diverse communities across Canada towards more temporary foreign workers who are brought in specifically to serve short-term corporate wants. Recent history, especially in Alberta, has shown that temporary foreign workers are often exploited, poorly paid and subjected to hazardous working conditions.

The proposed changes commodify human beings. The ever-increasing influx of temporary foreign workers will ultimately drive down wages and diminish workplace standards in Canada. Harper's proposed changes indicate how closely aligned the neocon and corporate globalization agendas really are. In the end, all of us — immigrants, migrant workers and life-long citizens of Canada — would suffer from such changes.

This Conservative government needs to stop the subterfuge and bring its true agenda front and centre for open debate in Parliament. It could start by removing the immigration changes from the budget implementation bill. Perhaps then Liberal MPs, freed from their fear of forcing an election, can vote their conscience and help defeat these regressive changes.

Dave Burkhart, St. Albert

Sniffer-dog ruling could have larger implications

So now the fact that a student in school has illegal drugs in his/her schoolbag is not sufficient reason to ask the student to open the bag?

Having effective methods for detecting drugs that kill our children is a good thing and we should use them. But now the police cannot use sniffer dogs because it constitutes an "unreasonable search." Tell that to a friend of mine, the mother of a boy who was found dead last summer from crystal meth at the age of 23.

Imagine this: an angry young man takes an Uzi submachine gun to school, copying many past incidents of school murder in the United States and Canada. The police cannot ask him to open his bag, even though a specially trained dog indicates that there is a dangerous weapon in his bag.

Now a terrorist with a suicide bomb pack enters the LRT or a movie theatre to detonate the bomb in a crowd. A dog sniffs the explosives but, according to the Supreme Court, the police cannot stop him. After all, if they did not have a sniffer dog, the man would have looked like anyone else. That is like saying, "If you did not know that he had a bomb, you would have had no reason to ask to see the bomb." It would be an "unreasonable search" even though the dog tells the police with virtual certainty that he is guilty of carrying illegal explosives with intent to detonate them.

Imagine that a terrorist has a nuclear explosive. A Geiger counter posted in a gas station detects the radiation. However, the police cannot stop the terrorist’s truck in the countryside, where there are few people. As a Canadian citizen, he is entitled not to be searched without "reasonable suspicion". The fact that a good detection device makes it almost 100 per cent certain that the person is breaking the law is not sufficient reason. If they did not have the detection device, the terrorist would have looked like anyone else.

As a consequence of the Supreme Court decision, we should now feel less secure that the police can protect us from drug deaths in our children, mass shootings in schools, suicide bombs in crowded places and a nuclear bomb destroying a city like Ottawa.

Searches using specialized detection equipment are anything but random. The dogs or other good detection devices only target those who are guilty. Innocent people are not randomly searched. It is now the role of the government to correct this decision by the court of supreme buffoons.

Dr. Paul Green, St. Albert

Community is to blame for high taxes

I have been a resident of St. Albert since 1995. Since that time, property taxes have continuously gone up and are so high now that a lot of residents are concerned. The increases happen with so much ease, I wish we all got salary increases just as easily.

In the April 30 Gazette, I read the letters from Stuart Loomis, Lilo Engler, Joe Obermeyer and Lou Tieulie voicing their opinions against the continuous tax increases. I also read the one from Abe Preisinger, saying ‘If you can’t afford to live in St. Albert, you should move.’ This last one clearly hits the nail on the head! Before you get mad or upset with me, I did not say I support high taxes!

We all live here out of choice and we have let the taxes get to where they are, again out of choice. Nothing happens unless we the residents collectively allow it to happen. So who is to blame for the high taxes? We all are! We want all the services we have become accustomed to and no one else is going to pay for them! We want lower taxes, so what are we willing to give up?

Can taxes be lowered by doing other things? I am sure we all have ideas, but are we collectively passing any of these to the City of St. Albert? Are we collectively asking someone at city hall to explain why the taxes are where they are? In the city’s annual surveys, more than 80 per cent of the residents are very satisfied with the overall performance of city administration and council. If these numbers are accurate, administration and council deserve a big ‘atta boy and a raise’ from all of us, don’t you think?

I have been to city hall a fair number of times, not as much as I should. In all those times, I hardly ever saw any other citizens raising their concerns. If we do not let council members know what we want, they cannot have a dream about it and give it to us! If they are doing such a bad job, why do we keep voting in the same people over and over?

Based on history, all this commotion over taxes will be over in a week or two. So sit back, relax and let council and administration do what they think is best for us! Without our ongoing input, what else can they do?

B.K. Kang, St. Albert

Councils past and present are responsible for Servus Place problem

This is in response to Abe Preisinger’s letter. It is not a matter of affording to live in St. Albert or not. It is about city councils, past and present, being fiscally responsible.

It is about councils, past and present, being morally and ethically responsible to the ratepayers, which they continue to ignore. This Servus Place debacle has been a fiasco from day one.

The original partners for a regional facility — Sturgeon County, Morinville, Alexander First Nations, Town of Gibbons and Town of Bon Accord and Legal — were all on board with this concept early on. Eventually they all pulled support. Don’t even get me started on the location fiasco. The location in Campbell Park is the worst place it could be. So what will happen next year and the year after, when there could be a $2 million-plus deficit each year? The pattern so far has been to gouge the ratepayers.

Council is willing to give corporate discounts to some 1,715 members, including some who I suspect do not even live in St. Albert. I would be willing to venture that if the rates were lower there would be higher membership.

Whether we can afford it or not is not the issue. It is about something that has gone from bad to extremely bad and continues to go down the wrong path because no one now would dare admit this was a huge mistake. By the way, we do have annual memberships in our household.

Bill Kimball, St. Albert

Time to re-think biofuels

"One of the greatest mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions, not their results." — Milton Friedman

I believe this quote by the late Nobel Prize-winning economist best sums up the lunacy that is now becoming evident with respect to the redirection of foodstuffs towards the production of biofuels.

Granted, the food crisis now being witnessed in many developing nations is not all due to biofuel production, but a substantial portion of blame can be attributed to it.

For some time now we have been hearing warnings that the cost of biofuel makes no economic sense. Not only does it cost more to produce than gasoline (in terms of energy use), it contributes more greenhouse gases as well. Huge swaths of forests in the developing world are being cleared and burned to provide acreage for corn production. Where is the environmental outrage over this?

The International Food Research Institute estimates that biofuel production now accounts for one-quarter to one-third of the recent increase in world food prices.

How is it that this insanity can prevail? Are we so blinded by the ecological propaganda concerning our so-called global warming trend that we are prepared to let the poor of this world starve to death?

Steve Knobbe, St. Albert

Don’t complain, help out

My husband and I both are on the board of the St. Albert Soccer Association (SASA). We work tremendous hours to make sure the kids have programs.

I'm sure Mr. Badach would recognize me, I'm at almost every registration day/night as we don't have enough volunteers to man the desk. I've been doing this for more than five years. I leave work early (my paid job) on days that we offer daytime registration because I can see the lineup forming before the doors open. We do not have a child in the soccer program, just like many of our board directors. I can't step down because there is no lineup of volunteers to do my job. I can't leave my paying job to make sure you can register your child late.

We decided to implement a late fee (although not as high as some other sports) because we want to deter late registration, not make more money. With so few volunteers we can't afford to double our workload just to make up the teams four times over. Perhaps the best approach is to just say no to late registrations, but that is not in the child's best interest.

Phones don't get answered because we have to be registering people that come after hours, make the teams, beg for coaches and organize equipment. We have a membership of over 2,200 children, surely 20 of you could find the time to help out.

SASA is not buying house, as Badach implies, we are paying staff to cover for volunteers and referees (of which there are very few) and more money to stay in St. Albert instead of going to Edmonton. Every director on the board has to pick up the slack of missing help. We are at our limit, yet we still go on because it is for the kids.

Some parents are making this volunteer job very unpleasant. SASA is directors, volunteers, staff, parents and kids. Shame should not be put on SASA for trying to do a big job with so little support.

Rita Koch, equipment director,
St. Albert Soccer Association

Get involved with SASA

These comments are in response to Paul Erick’s letter (April 19 Gazette) headlined SASA and Servus need to work together.

Your letter contains statements you believe to be true. Selective reporting of facts has made this more complicated. You have made statements that insult a great many volunteers and staff at the St. Albert Soccer Association.

SASA has lost a sense of purpose, that of volunteers. We strive to provide a positive soccer experience for 2,500 players at all levels. The majority of board positions that represent the community program sit vacant. We do not get the involvement of the same people who are prepared to spend hours criticizing SASA. In the end there are too few prepared to do the work. That is a definite loss of purpose, but not by the board.

Your statement that SASA only serves the elite program is insulting to the work done by the association staff in organizing players and teams for the bulk of the membership, the community program. Impact players pay additional charges above registrations that can be up to $300 per player. This money pays for our "extras." We have many volunteers in the Impact program. Your perception might come from the fact that these teams are operating year round and are more visible. They are visible because they are often the same staff/volunteers that you see at registrations, tournaments and who build the equipment kits for the community programs.

The Impact program is elite, which is its design. Elite is not a dirty word in the minds of anyone who aspires to the highest levels of any activity. I find it interesting that we work to improve our lifestyles and challenge ourselves but this same respect is not extending to amateur athletes. Unfortunately, the commitment of those involved in the Impact program may feel, due to negative comments by some, that they are not viewed worthy by some members. We have volunteers from Impact participants to support the Impact program, which is how Impact gets things done. I can’t speak for the community program. I understand that the Impact program might not offer the soccer experience that you are looking for but that does not make us less worthy.

Regarding Servus, we have chosen to try to be part of the solution by engaging in discussion focused on resolving issues. We choose to do what we can do to help and improve things rather than airing our grievances publicly. Publicly berating Servus Place is hardly the platform to create co-operation between the two organizations.

Scheduling of time at Servus Place can be a problem. Schedules outside SASA leagues are determined by those leagues, not by SASA. The association asks to have its teams play in St. Albert.

Many hands make light work. We have a volunteer board that works hard despite the vacancies. It would be more productive to have your time spent in helping improve the things you are unhappy about.

You say that SASA is arrogant and autocratic. However, the members are SASA. If you believe that changes are due, I would encourage you to get involved. I would be personally happy to support and help you.

Greg MacIntosh, Impact director,
St. Albert Soccer Association

Listings prove that residents are starting to leave St. Albert

Is it St. Albert council's desire to force people to move away from the city because of the highest property taxes in the region?

There are more than 550 MLS listings just in St. Albert. Many residents are leaving for other provinces and communities. As more residents and businesses leave St. Albert there will be fewer people left to pay property taxes and the deficit on the leisure centre. It's interesting how many new businesses downtown close down or sell after only a short time. I wonder how many taxpayers are tired of council annually hitting the taxpayer for everything. It's bad enough that our costs for food, gas, shelter, car and home insurance, medical expenses, utilities, etc., are going up. Most of us don't see our incomes go up as fast.

Those on a fixed income who retired here will no longer be able to afford it and will have to move. For the amount of property taxes we pay here, one would expect to see more bang for your buck. St. Albert has untidy building sites, graffiti, junker cars that spew burning oil and pollute the air, vandalism that could be controlled with a curfew but isn't, there is no recycling of plastics, the city does not spray for mosquitoes like Edmonton does, there is no residential pesticides ban or fire pit ban so we can enjoy cleaner air, the islands in the summer are untidy, the roads are the worst I've seen in years, the snow removal contractors damaged some of the concrete curbing around the boulevards and left a snow pile so high that you couldn't see the traffic. I could go on.

Council assured us the leisure centre would be self funded and that Ray Gibbon Drive would become a provincial road and funded by the province. Well that hasn't happened. The icing on the cake is that now council says it needs a plan to spend a $900,000 provincial grant. I guess council only sees St. Albert taxpayers as cash cows. Well this is one cow that will be looking for a new pasture!

A.B. Schmidt, St. Albert

Seniors stuck with hefty repair bill after hit-and-run in business parking lot

Thanks to the person who backed into my parents' van in the Home Depot parking lot and drove away!

I used to think I was proud of St. Albert and the people who live here but after what happened to my elderly parents on Friday, May 2, I'm embarrassed to say I live here! My elderly parents were visiting me. My father had driven over to the Home Depot to pick up something. While parked there, someone backed into their brown Ford van. This person smashed their headlight and severely dented their fender. Then, this person of character proceeded to drive away. This happened around 9 a.m. I'm sure there were witnesses and I would have hoped this person would have had the conscience to do the right thing. But they didn't.

I hope the person who did this is hard up for money and that's the only reason they would smash someone's car and not pay the consequences. The sad thing is, it was probably someone who could well afford to pay for the damage but felt they could get away with it. The damage was very obvious and now my elderly parents are forced to pay more than $1,000 to fix the damage using their own savings and pension money. To go through insurance would raise their premiums and it's hard enough making ends meet on a fixed income.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised when someone in our city smashes into a vehicle and then skulks away. It goes to explain why no one here slows down to let others merge into lanes, pulls ahead to let right turners go on through, waves when someone actually lets them into a lane, or actually waits their turn at the car wash instead of butting in front of someone. It's bad enough that our city is full of arrogant drivers but when their actions start costing innocent people thousands of dollars it angers me. I surely hope that the next time this happens, or someone witnesses something like this, that people living here would have the character and pride to speak up instead of just turning and driving away!

Rhonda Surmon, St. Albert

Council’s tax approach callous and high-handed

In addition to the substantial increases in taxes made necessary by the money sinkhole we call Servus Place, the approaching property tax increase of perhaps more than 15 per cent to be based on the average sale price of houses last year, shows St. Albert's present powers-that-be are as elitist as the previous gang was incompetent. The housing market is volatile and may become more so as the economy suffers some of the "adjustments" now being absorbed by the United States, our biggest trade partner. Because a house in the neighbourhood sold at a certain price last year is no guarantee that a similar house will fetch a similar price, even if selling is an option. What homeowners are being charged through the nose for sheer speculation?

This high-handed and callous approach compares negatively with other jurisdictions, for instance, Florida, where a new and higher tax assessment goes into effect only when the property changes hands. This permits older owners who have lived in the area for years to remain there through their retirement years. Those who can afford exorbitant house prices can presumably better afford the attached tax increase. But fairness and community stability seem not to be of great concern to our city hall.

Let me make a prediction: Servus Place will never carry its own weight or even an acceptable portion of it under the deadly combination of a down-turning economy and large and unexpected tax increases. Few St. Albert residents can really afford the burden of this wasteful, energy-sucking, great barn-like edifice. There will be less rather than more participation, and even more item-specific taxes will be necessary. It should be sold. Even at a loss (and that is a certainty) it would represent a future net gain. The time for other, less negative suggestions was before this folly was undertaken. Don't expect the citizens of St. Albert to come to a brainstorming rescue when their opinions weren’t sought at a time they might have counted for something.

Doris Wrench Eisler, St. Albert

Guests need to respect people’s property

I would like to put a message out there along with all the other disappointed letters about the lack of respect from others.

In my case, we recently had a get together for my son. We had hamburgers out by the fire along with other things. Everything goes pretty good, but a few too many show up who were not personally invited. But why not give them a chance?

So the evening goes on, only until about 11:30 p.m. and the police come and tell everyone they have to leave. That is great, I appreciate the fact that the police arrived and everyone went home shortly after.

Everyone who was staying the night went inside and hung out for a while, or maybe even went to bed.

But in the morning, when we go to leave the house, to our shocking surprise our vehicles have been ransacked! Is it because someone felt they were sent home early or maybe they thought stealing someone's property would make them a better person.

The days sure have changed, you need to lock up everything or hide stuff out of sight. Make sure you do that last check before shutting down for the night.

Needless to say, even if this was not due to the get together, there will not be another one at my house!

Name withheld by request, St. Albert

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