Dear Citizens of Moose Jaw.
Some of you may have witnessed the presentation that Mr. Jan Radwanski & myself shared at City Council on February 13th in regard to the proposed joint-use school in Westheath.
Mr. Radwanski mentioned that lots of bylaws & studies were not done appropriately about this project or not done at all. He mentioned others but you can watch the video on the city website in regards.
As for myself, I have asked a City Council member to stand on guard for the wellbeing of our community & push the pause button about this joint school project.
My other very important request was for the City Council member to go back to our Ministry of Education & tell them to finish the work that was started by the School Board in regard to using either our Westmount or Sacred Heart school location. The addition or new construction of the school could help to fulfill our need for more space for our young students & therefore keep the other three schools in south hill open with all their green space and sports facilities around them.
As we know, our government decided to stop that work in progress, then give a contract to an exterior company to design a joint school & tell the residents of Moose Jaw where they think that new school should be. Except for two trustees, our school board accepted that suggestion with open arms two hours after they got the suggestion without allowing for public feedback and no study in regard to traffic & child security; this didn’t meet the requirement that our OCP bylaw requires.
I was in tears as I shared my views at council. I have had problems sleeping for months as I have tried to write letters to wake people up in regards to this being a bad idea. When a political party in power puts aside democratic rules to get their way, we end up losing.
I was in great suffering when I made my speech and I cry to release my pain. This is truly heart-breaking for me to see how this joint school project has been proceeding, as I think it is a bad idea.
I feel sad when some elected officials of city council and school board trustees, as well as city administration are willing to destroy a great part of our beautiful community heritage by allowing the Westmount ,Sacred heart, Empire & St Mary school to be demolish. We lose the green space & sports facilities around them that make those neighbourhoods beautiful places for children.
I am still depressed to see how our provincial government & some members of city council are trying to use this joint school project as a cash flow to start this residential development in the hope to keeping the economy going. (I am not against perhaps reserving some acreage in that new development for a future small school that could serve that new sector of town & include with it part of the existing south hill Est of Westheath if we truly need to.)
Let’s take the time to talk things over.
The future of the Well Being of our Friendly City depends very much on what we will choose to do in regard to this situation we are facing with the education of our children & the design of our City.
Please take the time to educate yourself on the information available on this project & let the community & the people in power know how you feel.
This is my last letter on the subject.
Michel Labonte
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
