The Editor,
Re: “Wake up, Steveston,” Letters, Oct. 8.
How quickly some people forget history.
I was amused by Mr. Bob Ransford’s letter of Oct. 8 and just had to respond to bring to light some of that history.
When the campaign for the rezoning of the BC Packers site was raging away, Mr. Ransford was a key part of a group known as Community Building Consensus, or as I referred to them as Community Bothering Community.
Mr. Ransford, along with other CBC members, BC Packers and developer Onni, (who was going to develop the site) managed to convince city council to allow the company to bulldoze an internationally historic and critically important heritage waterfront, and give us the density we have there today.
Do you remember the highrise scare of a few years ago? I was amused to see how some of the ex-CBC members were up in arms and fought against the possibility of those highrises.
I also have to chuckle at Mr. Ransford for calling that part of the site an “abandoned waterfront commercial wasteland,” when the truth is the area in total is a heritage wasteland.
What also makes me shake my head is the fact the City of Richmond gave BC Packers and Onni a heritage award for the waterfront. Why would anyone in their right mind give out a heritage award for a “Heritage wasteland?”
I remember one ex-BC Packers employee being shocked, upset and at the same time amused at being contacted by a BC Packers executive to identify some of the artefacts that were going to dot the landscape on the waterfront, to fill the company’s heritage obligation.
I, for one, am worried that the “abandoned waterfront commercial wasteland” will become a high-priced area full of people with shops that think Steveston is the in place to be and not a fishing community.
Yes, Steveston’s voters should wake up, and we should make sure we don’t have increased vehicle density, as parking is already at a premium.
I would like to see more commercial fishing, not shops.
Gordon Kibble
SHARC (Salmon Harbour Advocate for Richmond’s Communities
