Gone missing

My husband and myself transformed a large portion of our front yard into a peaceful, tranquil Japanese garden this summer. It took us many months of hard work to complete the enormous task, including decorating a new cedar fence with three decorative plaques.

This morning we were shocked and saddened to find someone had stolen one of our most special plaques.

This whimsical ceramic plaque was located in the centre of our front fence at 2317 Galena Road.

It is tan-coloured, shaped like the outline of the sun, with an old man’s cheerful smiling face with a large moustache, raised cheekbones, and friendly big eyes.

I took me a long time to search for just the right decorations to add to the beauty of our garden.

We and our eight-year-old son very much miss looking at the friendly, smiling face once adorning the centre of our fence.

If anyone has seen our whimsical plaque, please return it, no questions asked.

We will not be able to otherwise replace it, as it was a one-of-a-kind find.

Cindy and Cory Griff

Sooke

Tired of drunks

Another week in Sooke, another litany of alcohol related issues; if it wasn’t for the police beat, one could read the Sooke News Mirror and never realize the community has a problem. Week after week, month after month, we read of drunken, apparently parent-less youth roaming the streets getting drunk and/or high, starting fights with nothing else to do causing a whole bunch of unnecessary work for the police. Obviously the courts aren’t dealing with these people and nor are their parents. Yet these people, many of who are presumably multiple repeat offenders, are breaking the law but never named? Why not? This, at a minimum might cause some people to take notice and not want to see their or their kid’s name in the paper.

I was disgusted to read of the problems on Halloween, and everyone in town with a modicum of decency should be as well; 48 calls, numerous fights, drunk drivers,vandalism etc., amazing someone wasn’t killed. 

Enough is enough, how long will people turn a blind eye? As long as this continues, it is hard for me to be proud to call Sooke home. Open your eyes folks, these kind of problems aren’t the norm for a town the size of Sooke, or much bigger communities for that matter.This should be the biggest issue in the election.

Worse yet, there seems to be a never-ending list of fools getting behind the wheel when they are drunk and it is only a matter of time before someone innocent is seriously hurt or killed. It is time Sooke stopped accepting these unacceptable types of behaviours.

 It is time the town’s only paper examined this issue, the problem, and what can be done about it. It is time this became an issue discussed widely at the community and at the council level. It is a shame those running for office have ducked this obviously thorny issue. Enough is enough or should we just wait until some more people are seriously hurt or killed?

Andrew Bailey

Sooke

Vote for change

When my family first moved to East Sooke, we were on Cloud 9. Living next to a 3,000-acre park on the sunny Sooke Basin was really a dream come true. Peace and quiet in the country. Well... except for the peace part. It soon became clear from the steady stream of petition gatherers at our door that we were in a war zone. A war that culminated this spring with the passing of five punitive bylaws that stripped hundreds of families of the right to even sub-divide for a family member, let alone help out with the mortgage.

Suddenly our dreams of giving our children a piece of land and having them and our grandchildren around us in our retirement were wiped out with the stroke of a pen, by the ideologically driven “rural values” elite.

We all know these forces aren’t going away. They recently boasted on the web that they controlled “every seat on every committee” and are backing their slate of “more of the same” candidates in the upcoming municipal elections.

So, while I’d rather be spending my evenings with a pint, watching re-runs of Mash, this fall I’m going to be working to elect to the land-use committees and regional director, people who will restore some fairness and balance. Not those who would hold their “rural values” over people, but rather those who will put people first.

As Woody Guthrie once said: “They can rob you with a gun or with a fountain pen,” but on November 15 we can take back that pen... and VOTE .

Vote for our families. Vote for our future. Vote for change.


Zachary Doeding

East Sooke

For the record

In response to Mr. Ted Mehler’s letter, “Museum Opinion,” of Nov. 5 in the Sooke News Mirror

The following are the facts:

*The Sooke Harbour Chamber of Commerce is 100 per cent funded by memberships and is one of only five chambers in all of B.C. that receives no funding from governments
and is self-sufficient.

* SHCC rents office space from the Regional Museum and pays $700/month for this space. 


* SHCC employs a part- time staff person with no funding from the museum or the info center. 

Scott S. Gertsma

President

Sooke Harbour

Chamber of Commerce

Mobile parks needed

The recent eviction notices delivered to a Sooke mobile home park by developers has sent a chill through parks across Vancouver Island. The recent court decision to support Oak Bay Marine Group over long-time tenants at Pedder Bay speaks to the disproportionate power relationship between residents and landlords put in place by the BC Liberals.

 A housing crisis suggests a response from the Housing Minister. As the specter of tent cities looms on the winter horizon and the further loss of affordable housing at mobile home parks increases, residents can expect nothing from Housing Minister Rich Coleman. If only they had bought Western Forest Products shares instead of homes; they might have gotten a hearing from Coleman.

As it is, they must hope that municipal governments come to the rescue as they did with the WFP land deal and put in place the protections that should have been the priority of the provincial government. Had there been a fall session of the Legislature I could have put this issue directly to the premier. Instead of leading on the issues that affect people’s lives, the premier continues his Olympic preparations. A gold medal for insensitivity and ignoring Vancouver Island are a certainty at this point.

 John Horgan, MLA

Malahat-Juan de Fuca

Hot topic

In recent years land-use has been a hot political topic around here. Before developers discovered the strata title loophole and windfall profits that could be made from applying it to the four homes on 10-acre zoning, four-on-10 was supposed to make possible extra homes for family members on one title without having the expense of subdivision.

Apparently recent amendments have closed that strata title loophole leaving the situation as it was originally intended. As an up-zoning never happened so it follows that no so-called down-zoning happened either.

All the huffing and puffing is rather pointless anyway as the primary determining