To the editor:
A regular donator to a government party gets the option to buy a piece of park property in a rural community. No one else gets the option and buyer goes ahead with the purchase.
The small park is very popular with residents and has a small pet graveyard, covered benches, extensive flower beds and an eagle nesting tree. The buyer destroys everything to build a store.
There is enormous public outcry from all over as residents, visitors and tourists who love and use the park.
Information about the destruction of the property and public resistance is evident but the buyer goes ahead anyway.
He thinks he can sell widgets which everyone needs.
The store is built with no consideration to building codes and has a very faulty foundation.
Despite setbacks, cost over-runs, and extended building time, the buyer calls on more money from a government-sponsored endless loan program made up for this buyer only.
There is no payback clause, payback plan, or penalty.
By the time the building is finished the supposed demand for his widgets is not there. The actual demand for widgets has not grown in 10 years and there is an excess of widgets for sale. There are new and cheaper versions of the widget or many are simply making their own.
When the store management buys widgets they are $1 each but at best can only sell them for $75 cents. So the store loses on every sale but keeps ordering more widgets. The financial impact is evident but the government loan money keeps coming.
The store owner has everything he needs to make a decision on the future of his money-losing store; he decides to expand the business.
Welcome to Site C.
Gary Young
Lac la Hache