Dear editor,

I live in Area B of the CVRD. It is no secret to anybody who drives the back rural roads of the Comox Valley that many of our roads are in an atrocious state. Potholes and cracks are common and don鈥檛 get repaired year after year. Of course, the potholes get bigger each year and will cost more money and time to repair one day.

A couple of years ago I e-mailed several photos and locations of potholes to Mainroad, the company that is supposed to maintain our roads. I got no reply. I then e-mailed their communications person. Again, no reply. Talking to the CVRD and the province made no difference.

I then decided to adopt a pothole in my local area around the Grieve/Clark/Hardy Road area. I named it 鈥淏umpy." My, how it has grown! It is now two years old and it keeps getting bigger. I am enclosing a picture of the proud 鈥渇ather鈥� of this adopted pothole. It is about one foot wide by two feet long.

So what is Mainroad exactly paid to do? I see they look after the main highway and those lanes get nice yellow painted lines. The back roads are mainly ignored.

It has gotten so bad in the past years that some owners started buying materials and doing their own pothole repairs. I figured out that, if all the people living on our street paid $100 per year towards a repair kitty, we would have all our potholes repaired regularly.

So who needs Mainroad? Where are our taxes going? Where are the CVRD and the province? Who is holding Mainroad accountable? I hear elections are coming....

Tony de Castro

Area B

Comox Valley