Dear editor:

I know that The Lake Report asks for letters to the editor on a number of topics, and occasionally I have sent a couple in. The Lake Report is certainly the best news media outlet for me in all of Niagara. I subscribe to many other local media to round out my understanding of the Niagara Peninsula in which we all live. I am so proud of the many awards The Lake Report has won. For one of the award winners, my husband and I even drove to photographer Dave Van De Laar’s home to buy our 2025 calendar.

I particularly like Brian Marshall’s heritage column, that of Garth Turner, and so many more. I follow anything the wonderful NOTL museum has to offer and, of course, the Shaw Festival theatres.

And I am from away, St. Catharines, not NOTL at all. Yet NOTL’s old-town ambience, now threatened by developers and developer-friendly councillors, concerns me deeply.

As a long-standing history/heritage advocate here, I appreciate every effort not to have the special history of NOTL disappear at the whim of millionaire developers.

I am also appreciative of the many letters to the editor you print, however long or short they are, however often citizens write in. I read them all, whatever partisanship they may display.

Please do keep up the investigative reporting, the charming local (even sometimes eccentric) articles, the stress to keep your unique heritage. It is all good for Niagara at large.

Gail Benjafield
St. Catharines