Dear editor,

The Comox Valley Old Boys鈥� Network rides again! This year they鈥檝e named their entry to the wild west show, which is politics as usual in the Comox Valley, The Comox Valley Taxpayers鈥� Alliance (CVTA). Just out of the chute, bucking and raring and firing their six irons in all directions at once, comes the latest rendition of the Comox Valley Old Boys Network (CVOBN).

It seems inscrutable that the CVOBN which has, in the past, spent so much time fussing about their desire to have more expeditious relations with the city, are now calling themselves the Comox Valley Taxpayers Association and taking out full page ads in the Comox Valley Record to attack council for hiring the staff to deal with the delays that have, previously, so vexed the old boys!

Why can鈥檛 these verbal gunslingers understand that Courtenay is no longer a cow town?

Currently, we have hundreds of millions of dollars in transportation networks, water distribution (with serious, information hungry decisions to be made soon), stormwater and sewage collection systems, flood protection, lands, parks and community facilities. Did the CVTA not notice the pickle we are in due to slap-dash decision-making in the past that has saddled us with expensive and socially disruptive decisions to make about correcting a sewer line that should never have been on the ocean foreshore?

It would be interesting to hear how the CVTA expects the city to handle planning for a city that has grown by 43 per cent with a city staffing level that has grown by 27 per cent over the same period.

I guess it is too much to ask that these cowboys jettison the belligerent attack on city council long enough to, at least, ask what would be the consequences to abandoning council鈥檚 effort to provide community services in a 鈥渟ocially, economically and environmentally responsible manner that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.鈥�

Seems a very reasonable task to me; but then I鈥檓 an old man with grandchildren whose future is of pressing interest to me.

Norm Reynolds

Courtenay