Penticton Western News by Penticton Western News

Penticton Western News Friday, February 24, 2012

www.pentictonwesternnews.com

letters

Council lacks transparency Mayor and council, please quit hoodwinking us. On one hand, you tell the public you will abide by the opinion poll majority by not allowing a prison in Penticton. Then, on the other, you vowed support for First Nations proposals of which one is situated within the city boundaries. Later, we learn you have sold a piece of our land that is situated adjacent to the South Okanagan Events Centre to a developer for far less than we paid for it. To further aggravate us, you gifted it tax free for several years. You did this without advertising the sale for potential competing interests. What is worse, you let them move in before ponying up the cash. And next? The deal bombed. Wow! I’m interested. Do you have anymore of these shady deals in the wings? Now you are telling us you are gearing up to revitalize a sagging tourism economy. This Àies against what I understand is the council’s vision of prying the tennis club from its Okanagan Lake waterfront site so that a hotel, townhouses and increased traf¿c can adorn this beautiful, open, park-like green

Sale carries a cost

Our mayor and council recently sold a valuable piece of property off for approximately half the real value to some investment guy who “intended” to build a hockey school dormitory. This guy started prepping the site even before the deal went through, which riled folks. This guy had agreed to balloon payments. He missed the ¿rst one, came back with some excuse, then missed it again. Seems his ¿nancing has fallen through now. Meanwhile back at the site, the sub-trades have been busy little beavers, pouring foundations, etc. Racking up more bills owed from the investment guy, say about $1.6 million worth. All the while our mayor and council is letting him ride. It turns out the investment guy is facing a number of legal claims, and that he allegedly misused more than $100,000 paid to him by a group of hockey parents. And this is all in the past. I’m no investment banker, but you’d think that the mayor would have done his “due diligence” and checked into this guy a bit. You know, to make sure he actually had the cash. So now there are small companies, sub-trades in a small town, one of whom is owed $300,000, and left in the lurch. That could break a small company. It is very quiet in the mayor’s corner at the moment. Guess looks really are deceiving, aren’t they? Lois Linds Penticton

Risks overblown

A note to Robert Hand¿eld regarding his comments concerning wind energy. I agree that there are hazards to be had with the use of wind turbines, but any production of electrical energy by any other means is far more hazardous, to wildlife, to the ecology of an area, or pollution to the atmosphere.

space on limited city waterfront. One councillor, according to a newspaper article, would like to see the whole area bulldozed Àat. What a travesty this would be since we have very limited public waterfront, which is our largest asset for attracting tourists. What rationale could the city council possibly have to turn this popular public recreation and respite site into a hotel and residential area considering we still have many vacant sites for development elsewhere in the city? And then there is the questionable residential power increase, and on and on. I sincerely hope the new members on the council can inject some sanity into the management of Penticton, because from my perspective, the mayor and a few councillors have become a burden to sane and intelligent growth of our city. And thank you, Mayor Ashton, for not replying to my well-intentioned email sent over a month ago. I suspect I would have been hoodwinked once again. Sheldon Hansen Penticton

However, your suggestion that a single turbine will take between 400 to 500 acres of room is way out of line. With 640 acres to a section (one square mile) you are stating that one turbine will use up to three-quarters of a square mile. You obviously haven’t visited areas of the world where wind turbines are prevalent — Denmark, Germany, California, Texas, etc. — where they have as many as ¿ve or more turbines per square mile. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia: Wind turbine spacing on most horizontal wind-turbine farms, a spacing of about six to 10 times the rotor diameter is often upheld. However, for large wind farms distances of about 15 rotor diameters should be more economically optimal, taking into account typical wind turbine and land costs. This conclusion has been reached by research conducted by Charles Meneveau of the Johns Hopkins University and Johan Meyers of Leuven University in Belgium, based on computer simulations that take into account the detailed interactions among wind turbines (wakes) as well as with the entire turbulent atmospheric boundary layer. Moreover, recent research by John Dabiri of Caltech suggests that vertical wind turbines may be placed much more closely together so long as an alternating pattern of rotation is created allowing blades of neighbouring turbines to move in the same direction as they approach one another. Frank Martens Summerland

Shop around

I read with interest the Western column by Steve Kidd titled “Hoaxes catch many in their web” and feel I can add to this. With the sharp rise in the value

of gold and silver, I recently took the opportunity to sell some old jewelry and pay some bills. I ¿rst went to the travelling event that keeps coming to Penticton to buy people’s valuables. The offer I was given there for my jewelry seemed too low, so I decided to get another offer. Sure enough, a coin store on Main Street in Penticton gave me 50 per cent more money for the same items. I want to warn the readers to shop around for the best offer for their valuables. What surprised me most was the coin dealer said most people with extra money or investments are converting these to gold and silver and aren’t selling them. This seems to show the widening gap between the haves and havenots. Lindsey Hall Penticton

We want to hear from you The Penticton Western News welcomes letters to the editor for publication. We suggest a maximum length of 400 words and reserve the right to edit letters for length, brevity, clarity, legality, abusive language, accuracy and good taste. All published letters remain the property of the PentictonWesternNews,which is the sole judge of suitability for publication. Letters must include the writer’s address and daytime phone number, which will not be published. Letters should be signed with the writer’s full name and be sent by e-mail to letters@ pentictonwesternnews. com; mailed to the Penticton Western News, 2250 Camrose St., Penticton, B.C., V2A 8R1; or faxed to 250-492-9843.

Don’t let your Commitment to health Run Dry! Come Celebrate our 1st Anniversary this Saturday, March 3rd from 9:00am - 6:00pm FREE DRAWS & REFRESHMENTS! FREE TRIAL CLASSES! Group Power, Group Ride, Antigravity Yoga, Group TRX and Group Gravity.

WIN A iPAD-2 and FREE GYM MEMBERSHIP!

Like us on Facebook