Signal Hill North Head Trail (photo: Alison Dyer) - a ledge between worlds waiting to be explored. But one person wants a chunk of this historic hill manicured and riddled with road-sized 'trails,' to intrude upon and remove precious wetlands, create man-made ponds with fountains, build miniatures of historic sites. Is this really wanted, on Signal Hill?
What can you do?
Voice your concern. Write City Council, Paul Johnson, a letter to the editor. Here's a list to get you going:
1. Johnson Family Foundation, Paul Johnson: 95 Elizabeth Avenue, St. John's
p: 737-1503 fax:737-1667
2. Grand Concourse Authority, Addison Bown, ex.dir.mailto:ex.dir.info@grandconcourse.ca
3.City Council
Mayor Andy Wells andywells@stjohns.ca
Deputy Mayor Dennis O'Keefe dokeefe@stjohns.ca
Councillor Art Puddister APuddister@stjohns.ca
Frank Galgay fgalgay@stjohns.ca (Chairs City Parks cttee)
Keith Coombs kcoombs@stjohns.ca
Ron Ellsworth shickman@stjohns.ca
Wally Collins wcollins@stjohns.ca
Gerry Colbert gcolbert@stjohns.ca
Shannie Duff sduff@stjohns.ca
Tom Hann THann@stjohns.ca
Sandy Hickman shickman@stjohns.ca
4. Lorraine Michael, MHA Signal Hill Quidi Vidi 739-6387 info@nl.ndp.ca
5. Media
The Telegram letters@thetelegram.com
The Independent stephanie.porter@theindependent.ca
CBC Radio - On the Go - 576-5270, toll free in province at 1-800-465-6846
VOCM openline@vocm.com
7 comments:
Alison, why not add a counter to your site? It would be good to know how many people are reading your 'Fen' offensive. Might give you some extra clout if it's required to stop this nonsense.
Michael - thanks for the reminder, i've been doing to do this...from # of profile hits, there have been about 300 people check site since postings about the fen development. That's a considerable amount of interest.
Folks - I'll be in Labrador on assignment as of tomorrow - if I don't have a blog up, keep checking the newspapers - there's a movement on to write council/GCA/JFF/newspapers to demand a work stoppage and public meeting.
Keep blogging comments
best,
Alison's letter came out today in the Telegram. No mention of the issue at last night's Council Meeting and I sat through the whole 1-1/2 hrs of it. With all the people on this board it would be great to see letters expressing opinions about the Signal Hill project for the next month. If anyone is interested, attached is a comprehensive site explaining why bogs are important, why they should be protected and procedures for doing so. I don't think anyone could argue that roadbeds near bogs are not a bad idea. If anything, all of this "fuss" might raise wetland awareness in the region. Even if you have a tiny bog in your backyard, protect it, as it might have taken hundreds of years to develop. It could only take a few days to destroy it even with runoff from honest to goodness topsoil.
See:
http://www.dnr.wa.gov/htdocs/lm/field_guides/managing/introduction.html
Thanks for the link Kanuman.
I've been in beautiful Labrador this week on assignment and have some catching up to do with letters and articles in the newspapers and radio interviews. There's obviously wide concern and opposition to both this development and the process by which it is going ahead.
Alison
I tried to visit the link posted by Kanuman but it did not seem to work. I think the link should be http://dnr.wa.gov/htdocs/lm/field_guides/managing/introduction.html
I wonder do we have the kind of policies protecting wetlands that are described at this website (relating to protective policies for wetlands in the state of Washington)? I hate to be critical of something done by the Johnson Foundation, which has done so much good for the city, but it seems that at the very least there should have been public consultation and an environmental assessment, and that boardwalks might have been better for maintaining waterflow in the wetland.
Now that I've made my posting I see what the problem is with the link to the website on wetlands. It is too long to fit into the formatting of this blog. I'm posting it on two lines this time:
http://dnr.wa.gov/htdocs/lm/field_guides
/managing/introduction.html
Very useful website!
Thanks very much for this Elizabeth!
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