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Cleaner streets needed here

While I am hesitant over starting a war of words I am not impressed with the tidiness of our community.

Dear Sir:

There has been much said about the conservation and environmental movement taking a strong stand against major projects and as a consequence dissuading developers from investing in Terrace .

While I am hesitant over starting a war of words I am not impressed with the tidiness of our community.

For Terrace to be recognized as place to invest requires a community spirit that starts with a clean and tidy city.  On Valentine’s Day my wife and I had a meal down town and were upset over all of the dirty sidewalks and unkempt look.

We both understand it was still winter and we have lived in Terrace since 1974 so we do know what happens as result of sanding the streets and sidewalks and the difficulty keeping the city clean.  More snow can fall and more gravel can be spread.  The common theme is let’s wait until winter is over with, which could be the end of April.

It is true that the cost of sweeping and cleaning gravel from a side walk is a consideration and it is a never ending job.  To be fair I decided to postpone this letter for a few weeks and see if there would be any improvement and sorry to say the community does not look any cleaner, in fact maybe more unkempt.

I swept the gravel off the narrow street in front of our home for the first time a few weeks back which  took about 20 minutes of my time.

I remember back to an early job after high school in the 1950s where I worked at a sporting goods shop on Granville Street in Vancouver.   One of my duties was to sweep and clean the sidewalk in front of the shop and wipe the windows down before carrying on with my regular duties.

It was an enjoyable part of the day, getting some exercise, meeting people and talking about the weather, a hockey or ball game the night before.

There was always the opportunity of attracting a customer or two into the shop but most of all keeping the shopping area tidy and clean.

On March 1st while walking to the Terrace Inn I nearly tripped on an ornamental sidewalk tree grate   that was hanging over the edge of the sidewalk along with gravel and other debris scattered all over the side walk  in front of the hotel.  The same condition could be seen all over the city the day before in front of every business we went by or into.

I will finish with a good and a bad word to say about the new recycling containers next to the George Little House and Via Station. It is a great idea that many people are using all the time and it works, but it is not very tidy.  We have seen paper, boxes, plastic, plastic bags all over the place and the refuse barrel often overflowing, all this next to a tourist operation!!  People using this facility need to be more responsible when putting their refuse into the containers and the city needs to do a better job of maintaining the site.

Jim Culp

Terrace, BC