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Niagara Falls
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Letter: Council did the right thing in funding crosswalk
Letter to the editor. FILE

Dear editor:

Letter writer Derek Collins’ complaint that maintaining the rainbow crosswalk deprives residents of some democratic process (“Taxpayers deserve a say regarding costs for rainbow crosswalk,” Aug. 17), declaring it “an important issue of principle” has, in fact, missed the principle at play.

Requiring some kind of survey of residents before maintaining a town asset is patently ridiculous.

Town councillors and staff don’t survey residents before they plow the snow or fix pot holes; they don’t hold focus groups to determine which flowers are planted in the town’s spectacular gardens.

They don’t survey us on when to cut the grass in the parks, or whether to permit temporary cafes and restaurants to extend onto sidewalks.

Those same councillors and staff manage quite well without having survey results on irrigation ditches, stop signs and traffic in Glendale.

And that’s because of the principle of our democracy:

We elect representatives based on our assessment of their policies, experience and skills, and then empower them to work on our behalf.

That’s what they do every day and what they have done in the case of the rainbow crosswalk.

We should celebrate that — and the fact that they don’t have to have a survey to simply do the right thing.

Doug Mepham
NOTL

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