Pipe dreams for 2011
By Allyson Kenning
In true GCC style, I present to you a list of things I’d love to see happen in Rossland and the area in 2011 but in reality most likely won’t happen. Apart from maybe a couple of weather-related items on the list, I don’t think I’m asking for anything terribly outrageous, though, and most of the things here I think many of us in the community can all get behind. Who knows? Maybe 2011 will see us band together in unprecedented ways and see some of these pipe dreams become the success stories of the year!
1. Better public transit between Rossland and Trail. A bus after 5:10 PM would be brilliant. You know, so that some of us could go to a movie or dinner or a social gathering after that time and still be able to get home. So that some of us didn’t need to scrounge around for rides home from work for jobs that end after five. I’d also love to see more frequent bus service to the ski hill. I don’t ski, but I think it’s pretty evident by all the hitchhikers sticking their thumbs out along Washington Street every morning, laden with their ski gear, that the once a day service currently on offer is inadequate. Besides, as a non-skier, I’m curious about the ski hill. What goes on up there, anyway? It’s a mystery to me. Perhaps I’d like to toodle around there for a couple of hours and maybe watch people ski while sipping a nice cup of hot chocolate. As things are now, that’s not happening any time soon. 2. A Warmer Winter. As a non-skier, this is very important to me because when I got my Terasen bill last month I nearly had a heart attack. And that was just for November! Granted, I am on an equal payment plan, but if I hadn’t been, I’d have had a hard time coughing up the payment. Since gas rates are going nowhere but up, my dream is that Mother Nature comes in and gives me a break. And the plastic I have around my windows is very unattractive. 3. Real affordable housing for people who really need it. Two words that might get me crucified around here: rent control. 4. Fewer bear killings. As a community, we have to face up to the fact that we share our town with ursine neighbours. It’s a fact of life around here – period. There were too many bears destroyed last year for my liking. Please, please, please help us have a lower number in 2011 by being bear aware. It’s not hard. It takes a bit of effort, but it’s so worth it. The bears are one of my favourite things about living in this town and it’s devastating to hear about them being destroyed at the rate they were in 2010. Please contact the local Bear Aware office so you can learn how to help prevent these deaths! 5. A relaxation of the regulations prohibiting local farms from selling meat not butchered in a licensed abbattoir. I love chicken. However, I refuse to purchase chicken in local grocery stores because it’s too expensive. Instead, I stock up when I have the opportunity to go to the States, when I bring back my 10 kilogram limit. Once that’s gone, I don’t replace it again until the next trip. As someone without a car, there is no regularity to my cross border shopping, which means I am often without chicken. Lack of chicken makes me sad. I would love love love to go to the Kerby’s farm, however, hand over some money, and have them hand me back a nice, ready-to-cook organic, free range chicken. Federal and provincial laws prohibit such exchanges, though, and I think that’s so wrong in this day and age with our focus on local food sources and sustainability. I wish to see these regulations relaxed so I can enjoy a local chicken along with my own home-grown veggies! 6. A longer growing season. This is the pipe dream of all pipe dreams! I enjoy planting a garden. I just wish I could have it in before the beginning of June and not have to pull it up in mid-September.
7. More speed enforcement around town. Or some more traffic calming measures. I know for myself that sometimes I feel unsafe on certain streets around town as a pedestrian. Upper Washington Street between the high school and where it turns into Plewman is one area I find particularly harrowing. The section of Spokane I live on can also be bad. I don’t know exactly what the best solution is (slowing down is one idea), but I don’t enjoy the feeling of taking my life into my hands when I go out for a walk. 8. A second computer/point of sale unit at the post office. I love our post office staff so this isn’t a dis to them at all, but rather an epic fail on the part of Canada Post. While the post office ladies do their best when there is a long line-up, it would be so much easier and so much more efficient for the powers that be to just install a second point of sale unit at the front! That office serves well over 3000 people, and we need, especially during busy times, a second computer there. We are not chopped liver here in the boonies, Canada Post; our time is just as valuable here as it is in larger centres. 9. Less doggy doo-doo everywhere. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Or at least it should be. 10. A cessation of the squabbling about school closures, rec fees, sewage, etc. between Rossland and Trail. Here is a nice little rhyme that sums up my feelings: Let us have our school Let us use your pool If you’d relax and learn to let go We’d stop envying your new Crowe
