just a rant

Anybody else want to do anything good around here?  Be careful before you sign up since it may take you on a path you will be sorry you travelled.  We are just better off to live in the past, let the ideas that have been floating around this town for years and years be the best ones, and to hell with the new people since they bring on a whole set of problems.  We have lived in Alberta for 20 years.  Moved to Veteran in 1993 and I have worked in Coronation most of that time before we moved here in 2004.  I guess that's not long enough.  I suppose we shouldn't have put our history in the book, that was probably against some rule as well.  Sorry about that, didn't mean to rock the boat.  As for being on town council.  Go for it people, I mean really, for 500 bucks a month you can just take the money and run.  You can't pay me enough for all the bull and shit I have put up with.  And I can say this because it is my blog.

I think Coronation has a lot of potential.  I went to a conference called, "Growing Rural Tourism Conference" which was and has been held in Camrose for a few years now.  It was one of the best I have ever been to since each and every keynote speaker and session was packed full of information and held my attention.  Bernie also went, he paid his own way, since he is interested in this stuff and I needed some company!  We really enjoyed it and we took a lot of good ideas away with us to hopefully share with everyone back home. 

For the most part any ideas he or I may have and which are shared by a lot of folks around here are not met with much enthusiasm from the rest of the community.  Why?  Well I am not really sure.

This community and this council would rather spend 25 thousand dollars a year towards an organization called PEPS - Paintearth Economic Partnership Society - than spend that money at home and actually achieve some good bang for their buck.  We could use that money to promote and market Coronation to the rest of the province, to Canada, to the world!  The sky is the limit when you are talking tourism and development.

We have a lot going for us here:  Pro Rodeo, Professional Bull Riding, Agricultural Fair, a Campground with fully serviced sites (believe me we have travelled around and you don't always get full service and such huge campsites to boot!), lovely baseball diamonds, a soccer field, a hospital with acute care and 24/7 lab facilities complete with doctors and a committee that is actively recruiting doctors as we speak, a busy continuing care and supportive living facility, grocery stores, hardwares and building supply centres, a pharmacy, gas stations, restaurants, liquor stores, home decorating store, RCMP detachment, a beautiful community centre, bowling alley and rec. centre, curling rink, skating rink, a K-12 school, a new light industrial sub division, churches, lots of groups - everything from Communities in Bloom, to ChooseWell to Lions and Elks to church groups for young and old, Minor Sports, quilting groups, Hospital Foundation and Auxiliary, Chamber of Commerce, you name it we have it.  We have lots to be proud of and lots to promote. 

Yet, we send 25 thousand dollars to PEPS every year in the hopes that our Economic Development needs will be met.  Well guess what?  They're not met and we are not getting any value for our money.

I am tired of it.  I am tired of repeating myself.  I am tired of being tired.  As a Councillor who passed this year's budget I was ashamed to say that we are spending the taxpayers money this way.  I believe it should stop now.

We have people in this community who would be quite capable of putting forth fresh new ideas to promote Coronation, to make us a tourist destination, to promote us and our ideas just to our own residents.  We have the people with the skills, the knowledge, the education and the know how to do all of this and more.  We have groups right now in town who have brought provincial attention to our small town.  They know how to get it done and it was all done at the local level with no help from an economic development officer or anything like that.

So you ask - Why remain with PEPS?  Well it is complicated.  Part of the answer lies in how we are perceived by our partners in the neighbouring communities and in the county.  They actually treat us with little or no respect and do not value our opinion.  This was evident the last time we tried to leave PEPS.  We were basically threatened and told that if we pulled out then the financial support from them for other things here would be pulled out as well.  I wanted to say, "So what" and I guess I should have because we ended up going back to the fold anyway.  I wish we hadn't.

I know that my name is mud in some circles and I guess that is the way it is going to be.  I have done nothing wrong and just because I am outspoken and just because I speak the truth I will not be bullied.  Yes I use the word bully because that is what it is.  I know I get no respect.  Well, too bad since I want the best for my community and I will fight to the bitter end if that's what it takes. 

Why do I do this?  Because I am strong and a strong-willed person.  I haven't been through all the journeys my life has taken me through to just give up and roll over.  I am not a quitter and I don't believe I am as nasty a person as some would make me out to be.  I do things that no one is aware of to get this place on the map.  Why wouldn't I?  I live here for crying out loud.  I like it here, we chose to live here and we will probably stay here if we don't get run  out of town!  I say that jokingly because, can you just imagine what that would look like?!

On that note, I would end this rant. 

Read, educate yourself, ask questions, have an opinion based on knowledge.  It will take you a long way.