In response to Valerie Spink’s (Gazette, June 6) and Bryan Corbett’s (Gazette, May 31) comments, you are absolutely right in recognizing that councillors Sheena Hughes, Cam MacKay, and Bob Russell are diligently and thoughtfully doing their jobs as elected councillors to question and discuss the spending on massive projects like a new branch library. Obviously 6,700 taxpayers/eligible voters agreed with them. This proposed project should have been more transparent to us, the taxpayers, from the beginning with some concrete cost figures and should definitely now be put forth as a plebiscite for the October election to vote upon. As Mayor Crouse stated (Gazette, May 17), “we got ahead of ourselves by telling staff to go and negotiate land.” St. Albert taxpayers are still paying a fee for Servus Place on our tax notices. Do we really need another expense added? I don’t want it and there are many taxpayers who cannot afford this.
I’m looking forward to three new councillors and mayor to be elected who are not focused on backyard chicken coops, an LRT travelling down St. Albert Trail (which probably won’t happen for at least 20 years), an LRT parking lot south on St. Albert Trail which probably won’t be needed or used, throwing paint of different colours on sidewalks, which now looks deplorable, and other ridiculous expensive projects.
We need three new councillors and a mayor who have the mindsets like councillors Hughes, MacKay, and Russell to work with them as a united council and who will continue to monitor and advance needed worthwhile and affordable projects in our great city of St. Albert.
Maybe a carpenter’s rule of “measure twice, cut once” should be remembered when exploring and proposing new expensive projects.
Sylvia Bilsky, St. Albert
