The following letter was sent to Lord Mayor Gary Zalepa and members of town council. A copy was forwarded to The Lake Report for publication.

Dear lord mayor and councillors:

I know at a previous meeting the lord mayor was intending to bring a motion concerning making the temporary patio program permanent and part and parcel of that withdrawn motion would have been to approve the consideration before you tonight, being the cash-in-lieu proposal by the Irish Harp.

I would like to strongly support the staff recommendation against approving this (and any other similar attempts) to extend the temporary patio program.

I, for one, look forward to Queen Street regaining her former regal beauty without the tawdry decks projecting into the street, impeding vehicular and pedestrian traffic and the foraging skunks and rats digging through the crumbs dropped by patrons.

We can do better.

Bob Bader
NOTL