I certainly take exception to the “trial balloon form of public consultation” process employed by Coun. Morgan Nagel as well as the content of the message. From a process point of view, I expect more from the leaders of our community and I certainly don’t expect to first hear about contentious town issues in the local newspapers. I would expect that ideas such as this are debated and vetted at council before a decision is taken to obtain input from the public. The public consultation approach should also be discussed and agreed to at council. Publishing an article in the local newspapers is not, in my mind, considered public consultation. It was a provocative suggestion that appears to have elicited a predictable emotional and negative response from the community at large and especially those communities most affected by this “trial balloon form of consultation.”
As for the content of this consultation I thought the towns top priority is to safely get traffic up and down the hill as well as back and forth across the river where it can then be distributed to the various communities. I was under the impression that this was the major traffic issue and, if addressed, would alleviate a number of traffic concerns in our community.
Building an arterial road through/by two of Cochrane’s smaller and quieter communities to address a concern in one of our growth communities seems like a knee jerk reaction to address what appears to be a poorly managed development of the access associated with the Sunset community. Address the traffic issues on the major roads into and out of Cochrane.
If Sunset access is an issue being addressed with this new arterial road then please don’t do it by creating traffic issues in other existing communities. Stay focused on the bigger picture and the plans that have already been shared in public to address our traffic and community access issues.
