To Mayor Justin Towndale:
I am writing to you today in search of answers on behalf of nearly the entire City of Cornwall. This beautiful city has been the home for so many people who once felt safe, proud, and resourceful. As of the last few years, crime and homelessness have skyrocketed, causing your citizens to feel unsafe. Our very few public parks have become Cornwall’s new landfill, which no one wants to visit due to the rising amounts of human feces, drug paraphernalia, and plain old trash. Finally, people are afraid to use the available resources because the CPS do nothing when called for help. Our appointed government officials have done nothing at all other than ignore the help requested and blow budgets for projects that the people don’t want to happen. With all of the above, this letter is not about the unhoused population (per se) or the millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on projects that currently do nothing to help the city. This letter is about one simple thing. Garbage.
Our once beautiful waterfront has become a dumping ground. I know the City of Cornwall is well aware of the ongoing issue, and nothing has been done to address it. Instead, your tax-paying citizens are going out on their own time instead of spending time with their families. They are spending their hard-earned pay cheques on garbage bags and dump fees. They are risking their health and their lives trying to pick up broken crack pipes and needles near tents with inhabitants who yell and threaten them with machetes, rocks, and slingshots. We are not asking you to come in and take away the tents. The fed-up Cornwallites just want our parks back. We want to go fishing on the banks without worrying about getting stuck by needles or having to move shopping carts full of rubbish so we can enjoy casting lines into the St. Lawrence River. We want our kids to play baseball, but many have had to stop signing their kids up to play due to the unsafe conditions. The next step being taken by us citizens is contacting the Ministry of Natural Resources. This is due to the fish habitats being desecrated by the garbage in the water, the trees in our parks getting cut down for firewood, and the biohazardous nature of the items being spilled into the water, groundwater, and animal habitats.
While this is not my job, and I am in no way saying your role as Mayor of Cornwall is easy, here are my suggestions to make this easy for you:
1) Get a crew of 3-4 city employees to walk around the parks. Record every heaping pile of trash both before and after and file those. These pictures could also be posted on the City of Cornwall’s social media pages as we would love to see action being taken.
2) Bring a dumpster down near the water, somewhere accessible for the above city workers and all the above-mentioned hard-working people donating their time to safely dispose of this trash, not at their cost. If you are worried about people dumping household goods, a simple temporary fence around and possibly on top that’s locked daily before sundown could prevent this.
3) In this compound, provide a waterproof bin with gloves and garbage bags at no charge to the citizens wanting to help, and keep it stocked well at all times.
4) Educate. Make a plan. Execute this plan. And make it public. Follow up on the actions taken. I am confident that the budget to do so can be found.
5) Law enforcement and by-law need to be more present and cooperative. We are trying to clean up our parks – our city – not bring people to jail. But we need to feel safe while we do so, and those causing these issues need to be held responsible.
6) Source a pallet of safe disposal boxes and hand them out to each tent. Advise everyone getting them that they can be picked up by city staff once full without repercussion. Strap them to the trees near the encampments if needed. We can’t always prevent the issue but we can control it.
As per By-Law 051-1996, it states that litter is prohibited in the City of Cornwall.
To end this letter, I would like to ask for answers. Why has this gone so far? Why is nothing being done? And why are we having to do all this work for you? We are fed up, tired, expecting change. I know the election is coming up, but maybe you can be the reason the change starts.
Alain Therriault, Cornwall
See “Save Our Park,” Page 10
L’article Why has this gone so far? Open letter to Mayor about crime, homelessness, and garbage est apparu en premier sur Cornwall Seaway News.
