The Editor:
I am a parent at the wonderful Seaview Community School.
It is directly adjacent to the Edgar re-development.
Yesterday morning, I was nearly alone at the school, watching the bulldozers get to work across the field.
A boy was walking toward the school, crying.
I asked if he was OK. He responded with a deluge of emotion: He grew up in the building being demolished, is now taking the bus to his school and was beside himself over the bulldozer hitting his unit.
I was struck by the rawness of his emotion.
This municipal election cycle will be dominated by competing visions for the development needs of the community.
We often consider these issues in quantitative terms (traffic volumes, densities, etc).
I would encourage all candidates and voters not to lose sight of the very real human impacts, like this boy and what he was going through.
We see these impacts at Seaview: decreased enrolment has resulted in loss of programming.
There are contractor vehicles, an increase in already unsafe traffic conditions.
The school board and municipality have planned for construction completion; however, there is very little evidence of planning for those of us living through the redevelopment.
– Alexander Coombes, Port Moody
