Heidi Kuhrt posed the following question to me on another part of the blog. I have taken the liberty of reposting her question here:
Hi Tim,
Hope your time on council is going well.
I wanted to know if the current council is actively persuing the goal set in place by One Bowen to engage the owners of Cape Roger Curtis into discussions to place more land aside for park. Also I wanted to get my hands on the articles you wrote in the BITE regarding Cape Roger Curtis. Is this possible?
Thanks!
Heidi Kuhrt
Heidi, I am very excited about the pragmatic direction this council is taking to ‘community building’. This is also a council that I believe is going to make every effort to listen to and act on the wishes of the community.
Personally I support OneBowen’s suggestion that the municipality approach the owners of The Cape to see if they would consider a parkland contribution in exchange for some higher density. I also think that consideration of another access into the Cape via Thompson Road is important so that there are two ways into/out of the Cape –this could also alleviate pressure on Whitesails, a quiet neighbourhood street.
Council has its hands full in the short term with the budget (2012 and 5 year) and dealing with the financial health of Bowen – and I continue to see moving forward on the Community Centre as a priority.
My suggestion would be for OneBowen and/or a group of interested citizens to put together some conceptual ideas of what they would like to see at the Cape – and what they think the community would support – and then approach council with a request to approach the owners of the Cape to see if they would consider engaging in discussions.
A well-thought out proposal with widespread community support would, I suspect, receive positive support from this council.
In my opinion, this approach will generally hold true for any initiative the community wishes the current council to address.
