Social Planning Cowichan has published the results of a study compiled over the past few years and presented it as a graphic overview of what the Cowichan Valley looks like (Citizen, Aug. 3). The graph was extremely informative on a broad spectrum.
I couldn’t help but notice that out of every 100 persons, 51 would drive to work and only one person — one per cent — of the population would take public transit. This information came from a variety of sources, such as from StatsCan, BC Stats and other community organizations.
All this comes on the heels of a July 29 announcement (Citizen, “$15M transit facility coming to Cowichan”). This so-called improvement will include a new and larger transit operation and maintenance facility to meet the growing demand for transit (a pipe dream), closed circuit television, automated-passenger counters and the introduction of new compressed natural gas (LNG) buses to the Valley.
This spending spree, according to the Social Planning Cowichan study, might benefit one per cent of the Valley population.
Really?
You have to ask yourself, are the politicians from all levels out of touch, incompetent or cannot resist the temptation of spending tax dollars on pet projects?
What this country needs is a new crop of leaders that are fiscally responsible, not addicted to more and more spending and not treating taxpayers as a cash cow.
Wolf Hufnagl
Cobble Hill