Editor:
Re: Gov't MLA doesn't necessarily pay dividends for constituents, Community Comment, April 19
Steve Graham provides an accurate look at what effect an individual MLA can have on government decisions.
He says that Val Roddick "had been ineffective at influencing the alignment of the South Fraser Perimeter Road," but I want your readers to know it wasn't for lack of trying.
Roddick took the ideas of the Hoover/Naas proposal to the offices of Premier Gordon Campbell and Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon, and stood in the legislature to enter our petition into the parliamentary record.
We were present for that and she even introduced us to the legislature, but none of her efforts were recognized and none of our suggestions were seriously considered.
Now Coun. Bruce McDonald says he will get a new crossing to Richmond "done" if he is elected. My great difficulty with this promise is that we were asking just to relocate a road that was going to be constructed and the concerns of Delta residents were ignored completely by the provincial Liberals.
What McDonald is promising is that he will get a billion-dollar crossing of the Fraser River in a province carrying a $60 million debt. That's a rather extraordinary "Priority #1" for someone who wants to enter the legislature for the first time.
I've said this before, but for this provincial election I want to remind voters that in six years of promoting the Hoover/Naas proposal, no one, except Vicki Huntington of Delta council, supported or even talked to us.
The Hoover/Naas proposal was meant to take all the heavy trucks from the ferries and the port out of the tunnel, which would have created a much more tolerable traffic condition.
Greg Hoover
