Editor,
Re: "Help Spend $750K Olympic legacy" The Chief, Aug. 13.
I suggest that this significant amount of money be spent to benefit the greatest number of Squamish residents, which is one of the criteria of the submission guideline.
While a Nordic training park has some merit and might be needed for the use of a very few individuals, we should have a project that addresses the needs of more than just a few.
Special-interest groups are probably hard at work vying for the chance to grasp this plum, ripe for the picking.
And who can blame them? Many have had funding reduced or denied due to budgetary cuts. The District of Squamish doesn't have the money - it has had to borrow millions of dollars for road paving and infrastructure upgrading.
Why don't we use the money to save the District of Squamish (and the taxpayers) some money, thereby benefiting everyone?
While in the past, such ideas as replacing existing toilets with dual-flush toilets is not a bad idea, why would we dispose of thousands of perfectly useable toilets in our landfill?
Or, using solar panels to heat our hot water - good idea, but the money available would only provide a limited number of households with this feature.
My proposal would be to reduce the operating costs of the Brennan Park Leisure Centre to roughly 14 per cent of its current costs. By using geothermal technology, it is possible to use the heat generated from the ice rink to heat the pool and the building. The proposal was made to the District of Squamish several years ago, to no avail. The Resort Municipality of Whistler, however, had the foresight to implement the system in their recreation centre.
It saddened me to see that Squamish did not have the significant role in the Olympic Games that it could have had.
Not could have had, should have had. We now have an opportunity with this Olympic Legacy to benefit all of Squamish and it will interest me greatly to see what that will be.
Burt Minshall
Garibaldi Highlands
