To the editor,
I must say that I am surprised to read in your July 22nd edition of The News that during a county council meeting on July 5, our councillor, Randy Palmer, voiced concern over having a jail in his area, saying residents simply didn’t want it in their backyards.
I would question how many of the “residents” have been asked their opinion on the subject by Randy Palmer – no one in my household, or any of our neighbours or friends who we have spoken to about the new jail has had anything negative to say about the possibility of it being located in the Thorburn area. I think that if a statement is being made by our district councillor, which supposedly includes the opinion of the residents of District 13, then he should have asked everyone their opinion prior to making that statement, or have done a survey of all the residents of the district.
I know Randy personally and am pleased to have him as our councillor. A councillor has a very difficult job, and it is definitely hard to please everyone, but I do not want to be lumped in the category of those “residents” who are opposed to the possibility of the jail being located in the Thorburn area. It can bring nothing but positive results, maybe not to Thorburn directly, but to the county as a whole.
In my opinion, and that of many others I have discussed this with, we think this would be a good thing – but I cannot say that the residents of this district “do or do not want it in their backyards” – I think that is a very ambiguous statement for anyone to make without the proper data.
Marg Cameron
Thorburn
