Dear Editor:
I feel the livability of North Vancouver is being severely compromised by the debacle that the Low Level Road expansion has become. The forest that balanced the industrial waterfront is gone. Clearly our politicians don't care about eagle nests and a few residents upset about giant, new power lines outside their homes. The port is demonstrating a complete disregard to residents with its sole objective to increase shipping volume.
But it is the mayor and city council who now look increasingly incompetent. Coun. Craig Keating is quoted expressing the importance of jobs, and certainly industrial taxes help pay for services (if the assessments aren't reduced to nearly nothing). But who is standing up for the citizens? Who cares for the people who have chosen to live here, in many cases making significant investments in a home to do so?
I chose North Vancouver 20 years ago because I wanted a green community, where trees made me feel closer to nature. Now I expect by the time we have endured several years of disruption to complete construction, the Low Level Road will be a wonderful truck highway, what was once a treed slope will be a giant concrete wall, and citizens will be able to walk the Spirit Trail to see train cars and grain elevators, with a couple of small gaps left to see the harbour.
I certainly hope city council likes industrial expansion because all they have done on this file is jump on the bandwagon with Port Metro Vancouver, at the expense of the quality of life citizens of North Vancouver care about. We cannot give up our values and the livability of our community to allow someone else's "progress" to run us over.
Stand up, citizens, before it is too late.
Randy Burke, North Vancouver
