Please will someone turn the lights back on in St Albert? Then perhaps we can see where we really are and what we are really doing?
Why do we believe we are the centre of the universe – that the world will be beating a path to our door. Yes, maybe we will have an LRT line one day – but that will be to take our residents to the capital city. With the best will in the world, Mr. Parker, we are a bedroom community. All the branding in the world by city hall, all the wasted paint on the pavement will not change the perception.
Once a year we have the children’s festival. During the summer we have the farmers’ market, the rodeo, but really, do thousands flock here during the rest of the year? We spend thousands on branding, fixing our grain elevators, rebuilding a railway station that has no train and goes nowhere, putting in drainage grates that are artistically designed, dig up the roads to put in trees, dig up the trees to add roundabouts. So our taxes are the highest in the region. Our business taxes are the highest. We have no tangible special resources.
Please use our taxes wisely, blink and look around. What we need are people working in city hall who realize we are a place where people live and where the majority of the employed leave the city every day to earn a living. A bedroom community in the capital region!
Liz Allchin, St. Albert
