Accountability

By SONJA BOURGEOIS
The ground is broken, the pipes are being laid at the Halifax Mainland Common. HRM’s ‘Tut-tut, don’t worry yourself’ attitude with assurances that 'we’ll take care of your recreation needs’ and ‘We know your needs better than you’ -- are not enough!

Not enough to justify our tax dollars funding a replica of the existing under-sized facility, Northcliffe Recreation Centre.

Accountability and public information are a citizen’s right in a representative system. We have the right to demand it; the right to be a part of the decision making process. Well before it goes to Council.

Relying on flawed communication, inaccessible focus groups, biased surveys and slanted studies to make decisions --is not the answer.
Preparatory news releases and well-advertised Town Hall consultation is.

Would you know, had you not attended the under-advertised Easter week, Rec Facility Open House, that HRM will never build more than one small multi-use recreation facility in the Western Halifax area? With 3 facilities on the Dartmouth side, the much larger, ever-growing population of Western HRM must make do with a facility that cannot meet even its current needs.

Will you accept a lesser facility than Bridgewater plans?
I think not.