The City of Yorkton has decided to put off their final decision on the closure of 7th Avenue North until toward the end of January, citing more study work. To me, this is simply a case of stalling because you have a number of aldermen who are worried about hurting people's feelings. This isn't about hurt feelings. This is about showing leadership and listening to your constituents.
Speaking of constituents, they are not without fault here. I can't begin to count the number of people who I have talked to since my original article on this street closure who have said 'Good for you, thank you for making your voice heard. This is a bad decision.' Well, it's time now for those same people to get a hold of a city representative so they can see how unpopular this street closure decision is. Conversely, if your friendly neighborhood newspaper columnist is full of dandelions, you should also let that be known to your city officials, as well as myself as my email is not hard to find on this newspaper page.
My understanding is the Chamber of Commerce was not present at the meeting on Monday and the Yorkton Business Improvement District has also been silent. For me, that's disappointing. But, that's the Canadian way. Sit back and wait for a select group of people to make a decision and then criticize it once it's too late. What I find curious, is that not a single person has come up to me to say I'm in the wrong to be speaking out against this potential closure (aside from parties that have an invested interest in seeing this go through). What I have had, are a number of people who have confided that while they support my stance, they are not going to say a word because business supports business. Fair enough, but don't complain once it's all done. If you have an opinion on this, I urge you to get a hold of a city councilor or the mayor. Stand up and be counted. City officials have been put in place to abide by the wishes of its citizens.
I oppose this on a number of different levels, and I'm not about to rehash them here in this article. But, I will stand by my original inquiry that if city streets are for sale, I wonder what the price tag is. Hypothetically, let's say one of the banks on the corner of Broadway and 4th Avenue decides to vacate and one of the other banks sees an opportunity to expand across the street into the vacant building, is that allowed? Can they construct an 'add on' right on 4th Avenue? Do we close yet another street? I think we have to.
I'd like to give two big thumbs up to the Yorkton Firefighters last week, who did a tremendous job fighting a fire on 1st Avenue last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. They were able to contain the blaze to just the one business and were also able to prevent from it spreading too much within the building itself fairly well. Within a few hours of fanning the flames, another call came in on Queen Street about a semi unit carrying two trailers of fuel going off the road. A car, somehow, veered into the oncoming lane, ended up mangled and the driver had to be extracted with the jaws of life, fortunately, with just minor injuries. This is the perfect example as to why I feel firefighters are worth every penny that we pay in tax dollars. They may not be called upon often, but I want them in top form when they are asked to respond. Last week, they had two major incidents within hours and get 'A' grades in both cases. Way to go. If this was your business, home, or relative involved in these incidents, is there a price tag that you are willing to put on these men coming to your rescue? I didn't think so.
The biggest sports story last week, unfortunately, wasn't a sports story. It was about a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, who shot (nine times) and killed his girlfriend and then drove to his team's training facilities and turned the gun on himself. The Chiefs handled it perfectly. They held a moment of silence for all victims of domestic violence. I've heard a lot of opinions on this, but none of us are really qualified to give one. We don't know if this linebacker had an illness, or whether he 'snapped' and realized after he killed his girlfriend that his life was, effectively, over anyway so he decided to commit suicide. The biggest loser is the three month old baby left behind.
Nice person mentions this week to Sandra Nordin, Doug Arnett, Cam Mehling, Adria Pozniak, Benno Looft, and Mike Jakubiec.
