Dear Editor:
Dear Rocky View County Reeve Rolly Ashdown:
I am returning my most recent edition of ‘The Vantage Point’ with your smiling face on Page 4, welcoming us back from summer and would ask that you permanently remove me from the mailing list of this publication.
Having just heard your unimaginable decision to approve (through your vote solely) Bingham Crossing and then viewing this publication which appears to give the (false) sense that our council believes in preserving a rural lifestyle, I can no longer accept the hypocrisy.
To answer your question, I regrettably did not enjoy time this summer and I am not entering the fall feeling re-energized.
On the contrary, after having grown up in Springbank, after having consciously moved my own family to Springbank; and after having paid significant taxes to have them experience a rural childhood, my family and I are left feeling defeated, eager to move.
We feel quite frankly, under siege by a council that largely, with notable exceptions like our own very responsible and responsive councillor, Kim Magnuson, seems to recklessly disregard the loudly expressed views of the taxpayer.
A council that seems to disregard the expressed interest by community members of the need for a thoughtful development plan, and instead are moving ahead with outrageous and contradictory development considerations and approvals such as Bingham Crossing and Harmony development. Adding to this, we just learned of the approval, not by council, but by the Energy Resources Conservation Board, of oil development within kilometres of all this unimaginable development. Hydraulic fracturing which we fear will impact the quality of our well and our water and certainly will affect the senior’s residence also.
All I can say is that it is deeply discouraging to live here at the moment and even more discouraging to be represented (or not) by you.
I cannot begin to understand how in your critical role as reeve, on the Bingham Crossing issue you could believe that the correct and ethical decision was to vote against the councillors who represent the affected areas.
I am quite simply, baffled.
Patti Morris
