I find Dr. Alan Murdock's commentary in Saturday's St. Albert Gazette highly offensive, to say the least.
I belong to this "merry band of citizens" in St. Albert like the vast majority of this community. I don't know for how long Murdock has resided in St. Albert but it seems that he, as chairman of the board of trustees of the Arts and Heritage Foundation is not very familiar with the functions of the long-standing Community League nor with the activities in the community hall.
By all means we all want to celebrate the rich history of St. Albert as the first white settlement in the west of Canada. But we want to celebrate it as the settlement and community that it historically has been. Until the late 1980s it was a beautiful, very friendly, all inclusive and bilingual community. Only over the last 20 years or so has it "developed into this different" city, as he would have it — an exclusive community for the very wealthy and elite folks only "who deserve nothing but the very best of everything," including its highest taxes and utility bills, the best salaries for its employees and council members, sports facilities, etc., paid for out of the taxpayers' pockets.
"Abandon all hope for serious living" — I wonder what all those seniors call serious living. who have lived here all their life, have raised their family here and are now facing losing their homes because they can no longer afford the high taxes, and above all the ever-increasing utility bills, especially if they ended up in the bracket of being single low income seniors.
How much garbage and recyclable material do you think they collect per week if they do not even have the money to buy anything? And how about the ever-increasing numbers of families and children who have to depend on the help of our food bank? "Let them eat cake!" How often do you think they visit the sports facilities at Servus Credit Union Place, the Arden Theatre, etc.? What do you think they would consider serious living? Yet they all have to keep on subsidizing the fun times of the wealthy residents. As to the arts programs for the children, they belong in our schools where they most likely do receive them.
Lilo Engler, St. Albert
