To the Editor,
With reference to the letter to the editor in last week’s Haldimand Press from the Cottonwood Mansion Preservation Board of Directors & Staff, while it was rife with misinformation, it is the decision of the trustees who resigned to not address them. Enough has already been aired explaining the reason why the resignations were tendered.
Debbie Van Dalen, Peter Jaycock, Jane Van Dalen, and I are proud to have been a part of helping to keep Cottonwood alive for future generations and would like to extend our best wishes to the group who have volunteered to take over its management.
Clayt Spears,
Selkirk
To the Editor,
I have been reading and been asked if I don’t believe that we should vote the same way, sometimes for literally decades. What is the alternative? These same politicians are the ones who know the system. They are the ones who know which bureaucrats to go to and talk to to get things done. New people just don’t know the way the system works. New people don’t know the area that they are asking to be elected to represent.
Well to answer these questions let’s start with that only re-elected politicians know how to get work done on behalf of their constituents is just wrong. First, most people running for office are from the area, (although for Haldimand-Norfolk the two last candidates for the Federal Conservative party – one was from Ottawa and Leslyn Lewis is from Toronto), and these people either know the issue that needs addressing and/or know the people involved in the particular issue that constituents feel need to be addressed. Second, it is the bureaucrats who run the system and from personal experience are very helpful. Just ask them a question and they will do what they can do to answer your question. Third, the person who gets elected is usual very good at asking questions and working on helping their constituents resolve their issues.
A perfect example of this would be what independent MPP Bobbi Ann Brady from Haldimand-Norfolk has been showing; you don’t even have to belong to the governing party to get things done! In the Spectator dated, March 18, 2024 the headline was, “Nanticoke zoning order on hold…..” which is a key issue that MPP Bobbi Ann Brady ran on. And Haldimand Mayor Shelly Ann Bentley ran on this issue as well and won because this was something the voting public wanted. Both are newly elected politicians, and they still were able to get this important issue addressed.
Who knows what will come out next from Premier Ford’s Conservative Government?
So please in any and all of the next elections please don’t vote the same way you always do. Please look at all the candidates and choose the one you think will look after Haldimand-Norfolk in the best way possible. Please let’s see this very toxic party system we have now know it is time for change! Don’t be afraid of new people! Who knows, maybe we can help elect the next and newest leaders that are truly willing to work for us and vote the way we want them to, not the way their leaders tell them they have to or they will get kicked out the of respective parties!
Patrick Cook
Hagersville
