Editor:
Blocking participation by limiting access is undemocratic.
City hall badly underestimated the interest of Burnaby citizens to participate in the Burnaby 2050 official community plan to "share your ideas through open dialogue."
FULL: I was put on a waiting list when registering on June 8th for the June 14, June 15 and June 20th events. The last one, June 21 at Confederation Seniors Centre, still had availability. Each event is limited to 100 persons for facilitated groups.
So city hall has capped attendance to 400 people who are able to attend. Clearly many are interested, as can be seen how quickly they were full, in a city of 216,830 people who are 15 years old and over according to the 2021 Census.
Why not allow everyone to go to one or even all four visioning events so as to better understand what directions and visions are out there?
Sometimes you learn something in one session that you can build on with the next information session. I like to have some time to think about the presentation, maybe talk it over with my spouse. Be able to ask questions at the next dialogue session. I may not understand all the information presented as it may be new to me and I later go home to research.
This is the most important plan of our lifetime, which will be referred to going forward as the official community plan guiding growth and directions of Burnaby for the next 38 years!
Parks acquisitions and neighbourhood density planning. Keeping mountain view corridors so that not all the mountain views are blocked by highrises. Nor the setting sun, which is no longer visible when driving west on the Lougheed Highway between Holdom and Willingdon, blocked by skyscrapers. Transportation, security, density within the city.
All who are interested in providing input to the planning the most important official community plan should be allowed to attend one or all the Burnaby 2050: Visioning Dialogues.
Register at Burnaby.ca/Burnaby2050 or phone 604-294-7775. Phone or e-mail mayor and councillors to not block access to any of the sessions.
I plan to attend, regardless of being waitlisted, as I think it is undemocratic to restrict citizens and then say they have been consulted.
Karin Alzner
