Dear Editor
First, we would like to apologize for the snarky manner Top of the Pile columnist Brian Zinchuk was treated in a recent letter published Aug. 16 (Yes, Zinchuk was ‘wrong about this’). The sad news is that Zinchuk is right in assessing retrospective and prospective “vibrancy” of the resort village of Cochin.
“Vibrancy” includes “quality of life,” and the taxpayers and residents (less than 200 people) who live here year round have seen this critical index decrease over the last few years.
All spring and early summer, wild dog packs threatened our health and safety. The village captured only two of the animals. No one knows what happened to the others. This situation was clearly preventable, but nothing was done to prevent residents feeding these animals.
In early July, a petition signed by more than 100 people asking that the speed bumps be removed from Delorme Drive was ignored. Delorme Drive remains a dangerous, dusty and hole-filled ruin, making life difficult for farmers, first responders, school bus drivers and others. Perhaps the money spent on the lighthouse refurbishment would have been better spent on fixing a major threat to life and limb of the users of Delorme Drive. While other village roads have been paved, Delorme Drive, which connects Moosiman and Saulteaux First Nations to Highway 4, remains derelict and citizens’ concerns are ignored.
All communities are more than the sum of their parts, more than the number of bouncy castles, bike parades or pancake breakfasts and other “swag” designed for the “summer people.” Those of us who reside in the village year round have weathered written insults from the mayor (Mr. Zinchuk is not alone), economic focus on “Cochin Days” over all other days, the dangers of navigating Delorme Drive and a host of other negative longitudinal quality-of-life issues. As long as our elected officials write long tomes in defense of scavenger hunts as symbols of “vibrancy,” our village’s quality of life will remain in decline.
Keltie Paul
Edouard Trippe De Roche
Cochin
