Diana French
Special to the Tribune
Civic elections this year. What ideas will local politicians and their challengers have to make the Williams Lake area a better place? I’ve lived here long enough to get huffy when anyone criticizes the area, but nothing is so good that it can’t be improved.
READ MORE: Williams Lake Municipal Election coverage
We could do better with alternate energy. Even if you don’t believe in climate change, solar power makes sense economically. Prince George recently installed a 20 square-meter area of solar panels in the parking lot by city hall. The project’s purpose is to generate electricity for city hall and possibly for electric vehicle-charging stations. The city didn’t pay for the project, it’s a partnership with Wattway Polar Panels. A number of B.C. school districts are also going solar. I don’t know how many but they range from a secondary school in the Okanagan to a tiny school on Lasqueti Island.
One of our current councils’ innovative ideas was to “endorse and support GPS tracking on prolific and repeat offenders who are considered risks to their communities.” Haven’t heard what’s happening with that but it almost seemed to promote our image as an unsafe/crime city. The school board’s major accomplishment seems to have been annoying the teachers.
Other city issues should include the future of the current downtown center versus the Prosperity Ridge shopping center (which will it be?) and the location of the museum. When council sold the Fourth Avenue site and relocated the museum to the Tourism Discovery Center, it was to be temporary until a proper museum could be built on a heritage site with the 153 Mile store. As former museum board president Sheila Wyse explained in a letter to the editor last week, the TDC site is inadequate for the museum for a number of reasons. I hope council hasn’t changed its mind.
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