Skip to content

Letter: Port Moody residents spoke out on Bert Flinn

The Editor, Re. “Why spend all that cash?” (Letters, The Tri-City News, Jan. 31) and “PoMo road changes could cost >$300k” (The Tri-City News, Jan. 24).
vag
Port Moody Mayor Robert Vagramov in Bert Flinn Park, after his fall election.

The Editor,

Re. “Why spend all that cash?” (Letters, The Tri-City News, Jan. 31) and “PoMo road changes could cost >$300k” (The Tri-City News, Jan. 24).

I disagree with letter writer Stirling Ward’s views in favour of retaining the right of way (ROW) in Bert Flinn Park.

Mr. Ward argues the city should retain the ROW to protect our “hard-earned dollars” from flagrant misuse because why would the city spend any money on protecting our largest nature park when property taxes are going up again?

I mean, how abhorrent, because, as argued by Mr. Ward, the current council can simply reject any development plans requiring a road through Bert Flinn without spending any of our tax dollars (because it apparently costs nothing for the city to review and reject doomed development plans).

In reality, how a city spends its money is a values-based equation and should be representative of the majority views of a city’s residents.

Mr. Ward and the views he and other candidates represented during the 2018 Port Moody municipal campaign were overwhelmingly defeated.

This is why we have a new mayor and a new council makeup: to implement the campaign promises made and uphold the values that are important to the city’s residents.

It is without question that the residents of Port Moody have directed the city to permanently protect Bert Flinn Park from the threat of fragmentation due to a road.

While a potential cost of $100,000 to more than $300,000 (out of an operating budget of about $50 million) is literally a small price to pay to protect Bert Flinn for future generations, the benefits to Port Moody by taking immediate and unwavering action to do so are invaluable.

And here’s an idea: How much did it cost the city to run the 2018 election? Maybe we could have saved all that money and kept the last mayor and council. That would have been an even cheaper way to ignore the public.

Haven Lurbiecki, Port Moody

(Editor’s note: Haven Lurbiecki worked on Mayor Rob Vagramov’s 2018 election campaign.)