Editor:
Re: Burnaby proposes new city hall
Other than for the sake of building big expensive shiny things with bronze plaques for their names, I hope our leaders reconsider this idea.
Yes, the current city hall (built in 1955) is out of date. It is only about 20 years newer than Vancouver's city hall (1936) and maybe a few years newer than New West's city hall (1953). It is shameful that Burnaby citizen's have to endure this "out-of-date" stigma.
Surely, when the world seems to be working remote, when the mayor and council shamelessly profess their green/eco virtues, when there is a glut of available offices (take the old gold GVRD building, please ... it has been empty for at least four years), when the Metrotown traffic even slows emergency vehicles to a crawl, and when the 100,000+ households in Burnaby are cutting back to pay for groceries, taxes, etc — this mayor and council has the chutzpah to argue that they need to spend $70 million on a monument with fancy plaques in Metrotown because the old building is not inclusive, is not up-to-date, is at capacity. Suck it up, buttercup.
The previous mayor may have not been well-liked, but at least he pushed council to safeguard the citizens' money. Yes, it is our money. It is not council money. It is our hard-earned money, either through taxes or the crazy developer's levies that make our city less and less liveable.
So come on. Control your hubris, make good decisions that make sense. Move if you must; but don't build because you can.
Al Louie
