Editor:
Hold on. As I understand the newspaper accounts of the proposed Southlands deal in Tsawwassen, it would put our municipal government in the business of "urban agricultural" land management, whatever that may become. Has anyone completed a credible and thorough business plan to show just how this will work, and how the bills will be paid, and how the very considerable amount of the taxpayers' investment dollars will be recovered? I don't think these are small items, and it seems the taxpayers from all across Delta will be paying a large sum for the agrarian vistas of just a few vocal Tsawwassen residents. These will be large and ongoing administrative costs, as well as very significant amounts for investment and interest for capital works that include issues of surface and ground water drainage, soils remediation, irrigation and access infrastructure. What will be revenues to recover these expenditures? And what expertise does Delta have to make this work? Isn't this whole "urban agriculture" thing just an uncontrolled social experiment being paid for by taxpayers money, but without their concent? Won't this just build another bloated municipal bureaucracy? Doesn't the process of the municipality "acquiring" land in exchange for development permisssion sound like ransom? I am reminded of the piece of "parkland" that the municipality extracted from another land developer at the corner of 6th Ave. and 56th Street, more that 30 ago, that has been neglected all that time, with no development, poorly maintained, provides an excellent concealment for unwanted activity, and is returning no value to the community. Not a good track record. Can they do anything reasonable with a swampy side hill forest pressed up against the international border, that won't cost megabucks for Delta taxpayers? It seem there are so many questions here, and so little comfort zone for taxpayers. It appears that someone in municipal government has a lot of homework to do, with hard nosed number crunching, and then they need to bring i forward for municipal wide public scrutiny and consent.
Tom Griffing
