Removing bus shelters example of lame leadership
Dear CVRD directors and staff:
Our CVRD board’s decision to remove publicly owned bus shelters and benches due to mischief and misuse shows the odious failure of our elected politicians to tackle and solve our chronic vandalism and homeless crises.
Details appeared in the April 4, 2024 Cowichan Citizen.
Recent bus-shelter removal (at Village Green Mall and on James Street) is the latest example of our board’s lame leadership. It follows the CVRD’s admitted inability to find a warming-shelter site for our struggling street people.
Rather than properly manage use of community centre space for cold-weather warming — or prudently hire security personnel to move or remove folks from our bus shelters — our timid regional directors seemingly surrender to our dangerous vagrancy scourge.
If local ideas and actions about chronic homelessness and crime elude our elected leaders, we suggest they resign — or seriously consult the taxpaying public about creative ways to keep citizens and unhoused folks out of the elements.
Yours in creative urban ideas,
Peter W. Rusland
North Cowichan