Dear Editor:
What is happening on Bowen these days? Is it just the fact that COVID has had us immobilized for so long that our outlook on life has been negatively affected? Is it because we can’t speak face to face so our emotions just simmer until we get access to a keyboard?
This year, so far, we have lost the potential of having a gathering place, a farm, acres of waterfront access and an opportunity of having a first-class retirement/aging in place centre at the Cape.
We have gone through an exercise that has turned neighbours (and those who will never be affected) against each other because of an apple orchard and cidery.
This is just not the Bowen way!
The wonderful thing about Bowen is how passionate we are about our island. We may have different ideas about how we would like to see things done. All I ask is for you, not to agree with everyone, but to please respect your neighbours and their opinions.
We elected a municipal council that has finally had the opportunity to accomplish goals that previous councils were unable to do. We have finally done something with some of the surplus lands. We have land being developed for a much-needed fire hall. A health centre is now on the immediate horizon. Bowen Island Resilient Community Housing (BIRCH) is able to see the land where new and exciting housing is going to be available. We finally have some rental housing being built on some of those surplus lands. We will have a community hall with meeting rooms, a performance centre, an efficient municipal hall accessible to all (including a gym that I’m not overly excited about since we do have a number of private gyms that could be run in cooperation with the recreation department but that’s just me) that will have access, parking and gathering spots. We have potable water distribution system that may, one day, reach all the way through Eaglecliff. We finally have the true start of a safe cross-island trail for pedestrians and bikers.
We now have an uproar against access to a rocky postage-stamp sized beach!
Bowen…let’s celebrate the positive. Get online and comment how wonderful our island community really is.
Sure there are things that you disagree with, but that is why we have such a huge gathering each November 11…to commemorate those who lost their lives to give us those freedoms. We have the freedom to disagree but once decisions have been made, just go with the solution and find something in those decisions that you can celebrate! In the surveys conducted a few years ago by the Economic Development Committee, the word community was the number one reason so many of us moved to and love this island.
Don’t let the last loudest (negative) voice to be heard. Celebrate the positive. Comment here in the Undercurrent and online in “everything else” about how awesome this island is. Don’t let negativity fill our eyes and ears. I for one, am so thankful we live here on Bowen during these troublesome times. Where better in Canada could we be? Positivity is so beneficial to your physical and especially your mental health.
Murray Atherton
