Dear editor:

I just read another of Ross’s Ramblings, (“NOTL is a pretty town. It’s also noisy, congested and smelly,”) and the only part I agree with is the town’s parking meter problem.

For anyone who has to use them, they are a real problem.

I spend literally every day of the week through the summer months, starting about 7:30 a.m., working in the Queen and King streets area, gardening and caring for the flower displays at many commercial businesses.

I am there on the street actually watching it wake up every day but for your columnist to label our special historical and really beautiful downtown as messy, noisy and congested – and can you believe, smelly – is really odd and offensive.

The downtown area does have moments when delivery trucks stop to support our local merchants, but they only are there for a few minutes.

And later, usually on a weekend, it can be a bit of a traffic jam, but this is part of what makes our downtown a real living, breathing downtown.

It is a real local business area, employing many people and keeping this town alive. It is not sterile and tidy in a phoney way.

I, for one, do not want our town compared to Whistler or to become what that community has become, ever.

That may suit Ross perfectly, but we have a unique and special town that seems to always be under threat these days.

I think we need to preserve and protect and improve wherever we can.

Christopher Allen
NOTL