(02-01-2019, 06:30 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Boy, I didn't even read this page, until after creative's comment.
Ugh, this is pure insanity. Anyone want to meet with Davey this weekend and try to walk...literally anywhere outside of a residential neighbourhood.
I hadn't looked at the page until just now, and during my walk downtown this morning I was seriously considering e-mailing him to invite him along for a walk with me and my kids, to see me lifting the stroller over snow banks and walking down busy streets, and see how impossible it would be for all kinds of people.
But I read the editorial, and it's pure bad faith, and talking to him about real experiences isn't likely to change his position. To actually believe the stuff he is writing in that editorial, he would have to be a moron. He almost certainly isn't, so statements like "City staff has already stated they would need to use four to five times the amount of salt we already use" are dishonest. That's simply not true. There is no way sidewalks would require more salt than City-cleared roads, and certainly not four or five times.
The figure of "3.5% increase" is an example of being dishonest without lying, too. "3.5%" sounds like a fair bit. He says it's "in the stratosphere," which is an expression without definition. But it's about $35 for the typical ratepayer. Davey's committee just approved a water rate increase that is about double that for the typical water user.
Anyway, he doesn't say anywhere in the editorial that sidewalks aren't poorly maintained. He probably knows that. So seeing us struggle to get around or actually observing uncleared sidewalks isn't going to move him- he probably already knows that it's terrible to get around on the sidewalks, he just doesn't care.