Editor, The News:
Re: “Ridge should be envy of all’ (Letters, Dec. 9).
In reading the letters from Mike Boileau and Graham Mowatt regarding city expenditures, I could not agree more.
Borrowing to spend on fields and a swimming pool is nothing more than a ruse to make the mayor look good at the next election, but has no regard for the cost to the taxpayer.
Neither item is an emergency nor a dire need, yet the city has not been able to set-aside the necessary money to achieve such ambitions without borrowing.
Large sums should only be spent if the money has been set-aside in advance for that purpose, unless there is a dire emergency or need which, in this case, clearly does not exist.
Of course, spending huge sums on parks and recreation or similar projects when you can’t afford it does allow high-positioned politicians to claim that they have done things when the next election arrives.
But the prudent politician, whose interests truly lie with advancing the overall interest of the voters, forgets about their own upwardly mobile ambitions and conserves resources for the rainy day and to curtail the financial burdens placed upon residents who are desperately trying to make ends meet in a recession, as exists now.
Roderick Rhodes
Maple Ridge