-
What do you see as the
most important issues facing the Sunbury/Annieville
neighbourhoods
and what are you willing to do to address these
issues?
Perhaps the number one issue
for many Sunbury residents is to remove the heavy volume of
truck traffic from River Rd. Either a South Fraser
Perimeter Road or a tunnel promises to do this. However,
neither option has gone to my knowledge beyond the
talking stage. Delta Council needs to ensure that
N.Delta residents, particularly
in the Sunbury area, have their wishes heard re the location
and type of by-pass option chosen. And Council can see that
this happens. As a community we also need to know both
when construction is going to start, and how the community
impacts of such a construction project will be mitigated for
the local residents.
Traffic is also an issue
wherever one lives in N.Delta,
and the volumes of commuters particularly seem to increase
annually as Surrey continues to grow. A challenge for the
Sunbury/Annieville area is to
ensure that regional and through traffic generally does not
affect local residential neighbourhoods
via “rat-running” And this challenge can be addressed by
an enhanced program of traffic calming. Such a program
would have to cover the entire area of Sunbury;
otherwise the problem migrates from one street to the
other.
A Delta First Council would
work with residents in the Sunbury and
Annieville areas to ensure that both these issues are
addressed properly.
2.What importance do you place on community input and
how do you propose to use the input of these
neighbourhoods in upcoming
issues?
Neighbourhood
input is essential if any of the problems affecting a
locality with Delta are ever to be adequately addressed.
While it is possible to involve local communities in solving
specific problems such as how relief can be found for truck
traffic on River Rd., it is important for Council to keep
up-to-date on how the public in any of our communities are
feeling about a variety of issues: everything from crime
prevention to the condition of our facilities for example.
A Delta First Council would commit to holding “community
forums” at least twice each year within each of South and
North Delta. These would provide for regular feedback from
residents, and provide residents with a measure of
accountability. These community input sessions need only
involve the mayor and councilors listening to the voices of
the community. It is not necessary to create a traveling
“road show” with a host of staff members present. These
are to be talk to your Council sessions, and they must occur
on a regular basis if they are to have any value either for
Council or for the residents affected.
3.What importance do you place on heritage and
environmental protection and what are you willing to do to
back your position?
There is no question that
Delta Council must play an active role in ensuring our
environment is protected. This can often be done by
requiring that any project that poses any risk to the
environment be subject to a rigorous environmental
assessment beforehand. Another step is to ensure that
environmentally sensitive areas within our community are
protected by special designations and subject to the
development permit process whereby specific environmental
protection measures are mandated before any development can
go ahead.
Fish habitat within riparian
areas along the Fraser and the edges of streams need local
legislation to back that of the province. Burns Bog, now
it is in public ownership, still needs to be protected from
recurrent wildfires and trespass. The Boundary Bay area
which accommodates migrating wildfowl within the Pacific
Flyway also needs support from local government. No doubt
we can find allies among neighbouring
municipalities within the greater Vancouver region who can
help us find additional resources to help sustain these last
two environmental objectives.
Protection of heritage sites,
whether relating to first nation heritage, or to early
European settlement, can be
protected. There is an abundance of provincial legislation
to deal with both. But the municipality needs to go beyond
protection to educating the public about our past,
and how our communities have evolved unto the
present. The Delta Museum and the Heritage Committee both
are open to volunteers and both play an important role in
not only identifying important heritage sites and buildings,
but bringing information about our heritage to the attention
of the public. Council must support both of these
organizations, and enable them to make their information
widely available throughout the entire community.
4.
Given that Delta is divided into three separate districts,
how will you elicit the opinions of each district and what
weight will you give those opinions?
I may well have answered this
question in relation to number 2 above. The aforementioned
community forums will be a new step for Delta Council to
make. These events will have to be scheduled on a regular
basis, input from local citizens
needs to be carefully recorded, and issues raised need to be
addressed in a timely fashion. Otherwise, these community
input sessions will be only empty exercises. And a Delta
First Council will inaugurate this kind of program
immediately.