Gregory Hartnell to Victoria City Councillor Pamela Madoff on JOHNSON STREET BRIDGE DEMO: ‘You advocate [Johnson Street Bridge] demolition without providing a single reason why’

CCC PRESIDENT GREGORY HARTNELL URGES

VETERAN ARCHITECTURAL PRESERVATIONIST

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY COUNCILLOR MADOFF

AND ALL VICTORIA CITY COUNCILLORS

TO ADDRESS TRUE COSTS OF AMORTIZED $63,000,000 LOAN,

REALISTIC ANALYSIS OF COST-SHARING PROSPECTS

WITH DEFICIT-BURDENED SENIOR GOVERNMENTS …

WHY THE REPRIORITISATION FROM HOMELESSNESS SOLUTIONS

TO UNSUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE STIMULUS SPENDING?

 

CONCERNED CITIZENS’ COALITION

1357 Rockland Avenue

Victoria V8S 1V7

TEL: 250 382 97 67

 

Councillor Pamela Madoff

Victoria City Council

 

Dear  Councillor Madoff: 

Thanks very much for your email letter on the Johnson Street Bridge issue which we have opened to public perusal here at the CCC BLOG, along with other letters on the same subject by your fellow Councillors Young, Luton and Hunter.

They are all found in the CCC BLOGROLL to the right.

We are pleased to learn that your recognize the Joseph Strauss-designed bascule Blue Bridge’s “unique construction, its history and its role as a city landmark.”

In light of that language, it therefor becomes quite incomprehensible to us how you would then advocate its demolition without providing a single reason why it would be wise to do so.

You immediately address the secondary issues of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo station siting, improved bridgeheads at the Chinatown and Vic West ends, improved access for pedestrians and cyclists, as if you had already provided convincing reasons for advocating the demolition and replacement of this thing that you supposedly value so highly.

One wonders why you would endorse your second less-preferred option at Council without exlaining why you abandoned your preferred first option of rehabilitating the present Johnson Street Bridge?

You divert the reader’s attention away from the Johnson Street Bridge issue in Victoria by the detour into a discussion of difficulties at the 4th Street Bridge in San Francisco, a city that  regularly suffers major earthquakes.

Victoria does not, and as you know better than most, our treasured 19th century Victoria Old Town structures have withstood the minor tremors we occasionally get for more than 150 years.

Your condemnation of the ‘faux heritage’ Disneyfication of the 4th Street Bridge in San Francisco is interesting, but ultimately diversionary and not really relevant to the Victoria debate, in my humble opinion.

You never address (nor have any other Councillors) issues of very significant import to many Victorian, such as:

1. Total loan costs for City of Victoria taxpayers for the proposed demolition and replacement of Johnson Street Bridge, after amortization.

2. Realistic analysis of cost-sharing prospects with other unsympathetic governments, both burdened with huge deficits.

3. Apparent reprioritisation of Council’s agenda from solving the homeless crisis in the 2008 campaign to infrastructure stimulus spending in the 2009 recession, etc.

With all due respect, your letter leaves a lot of such questions unaddressed (as do those of all of your fellow Councillors), and therefor we would ask all of you to speak to such public interest concerns.

You may use the comments section at the end of this posting to the CCC BLOG if you like, or submit a longer essay to me by email.

Very sincerely yours

Gregory Hartnell, President

Concerned  Citizens’ Coalition

Editor, CCC BLOG

”Goyo de la Rosa’

Editor, LA ROSA

 

CCC