Editor, The News:

Re: Don’t neglect downtown (Letters, July 3).

Zulis Rouch’s proposal of giving the downtown area a face lift shouldn’t be debated. It is an absolute requirement for our district.

You say it might fall into disrepair, yet it already has. For the several years that my family and I have lived here I have seen very little improvement. Sidewalks are falling apart, storefronts are faded and dirty, some boarded up altogether.

You say it may well be a place that only the homeless and fringe groups populate? Again, this is already a reality in many of the downtown areas.

You won’t have much of an argument about modernizing our district or about making it safe so that even the most able bodied person doesn’t trip on a deep crevice in our crappy sidewalks and break a wrist.

I know that providing a clean, up-to-date grocery store to the seniors here is a great idea, and is more than overdue.

We are no longer a small town requiring just the downtown core to sustain us and we haven’t been for many, many years.

It is irresponsible for this district to allow the development that has already occurred and not provide for it.

Development of a shopping centre in the Albion flats should not mean that the downtown core of Maple Ridge would be left to disintegrate, as you suggested.

We drive to other cities not just because the current shopping options, such as Zellers and our mall need a simple face lift, but also because there is a very limited selection of places to shop.

Updating the downtown core does not resolve the lack of shopping options. Fixing it up would be a Band-Aid (albeit a necessary one).

We don’t drive to Langley, Mission, Abbotsford and Coquitlam because they are prettier or because of their quaint cafés. We go there to get a job done, like buying the kids some clothes for school, or buying a new stroller for the baby.

As for big-box Stores, you mention the days when Hastings Street had Eatons and Woodwards. Not sure how these two stores are considered to be small quaint shops.

Frankly, I’m pretty tired of the term ‘big-box store,’ as the size of the store has no bearing. It could be small, it could be big, I just want more of them so long as their development is done responsibly.

I will admit to loving a one-stop shop that many of the larger stores provide, as let’s face it, being able to find what we need for less money and get home in a timely fashion is what most working class people want.

Inevitably, paying less means that I still have money in my wallet to spend at our cafés and other local businesses.

If I’m shopping in Maple Ridge, I spend less time in my car, I don’t have to pay a bridge toll, I don’t spend as much on gas, and I don’t spew exhaust all the way to Langley. I also have more time to spend with my family.

It seems to me that there is very little room to argue.

Make our Maple Ridge something that we are proud of instead of embarrassed by. Beautify it, but also sustain the people who live here.

The downtown community can no longer provide everything, even if it has a fancy new look. Those days were gone a long time ago, when our population reached 45,000. Stop discussing it, studying it, and debating it and do something, anything. Just please get something done.

Rhonda Clark

Maple Ridge