Editor, The News:
I was surprised to read that Mayor Nicole Read and Coun. Tyler Shymkiw are wasting valuable time reading and responding to Facebook attacks.
Shallow, online blowhards need to be ignored, not encouraged.
Our mayor and council should be spending their time with people willing to make the effort to show up in person and engage in adult, face-to-face, discussion and dialogue.
The laziness of many online critics was exposed last year.
During the last local election, the online community made a big noise about a supposed lack of transparency at city hall.
In response, our new council created a transparency task force to study submissions, and make recommendations.
Council appointed a local citizen with a strong online presence as chair, and called for citizens to apply for membership on the committee through an online and newspaper advertising campaign.
The result was telling. Not enough citizens applied to be members of the committee, and the deadline for applications had to be extended and more advertising done.
The real people of Maple Ridge shouldn’t have their needs eclipsed by those whose community involvement starts and ends at their computer keyboards or smart phones.
Steve Ranta
Maple Ridge
(Editor’s Note: Steve Ranta ran as an independent candidate in the 2015 federal election.)