| The Crystal Beach Strand page four |
Desperate People Are Easily Manipulated |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
A Blast From 2008 ~ Remember THIS? |
| CAN YOU IMAGINE THIS BEAUTIFUL STRETCH OF BEACH LINED WITH HIGHRISE CONDOS? |
| A lot of people in Fort Erie are in desperate straits. Unemployment is the highest in the region, possibly the highest in Canada. People are losing their homes, their utilities and their pride as their opportunities and their futures move farther and farther out of reach. Enter a developer who has been invited to submit a proposal by a desperate town administration that is facing shortfalls in its own housekeeping due to mismanagement, bloated town staff, and greed. The developer sees the opportunity to get valuable waterfront town-owned property for practically nothing as a sound business move. A golden opportunity dropped in his lap by a desperate town run by wildly dimwitted people. The next step is to sell the idea to the townspeople as a "good thing." All they need to do is rip a page out of the play book used by Jim Thibert to get the town and the province to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Fort Erie Racetrack on the promise that it will "save jobs." About 150 seasonal jobs and dying racetrack have been saved at the cost of millions. Despite the generous gifts given by the province and the town, it is alleged that the race track is in litigation with the town in a dispute over taxes owed on the land it occupies. That will cost further hundreds of thousands dollars to the taxpayers. So, the developer figured it would be a cakewalk to take possession of the land and build something there. Originally, they went for it all, knowing that the eventual scale back would seem like a victory to the eventual opposition. Despite what their co-opted local councillor led them to believe that their development will be greeted with enthusiasm by the people of Crystal Beach. It didn't turn out to be quite that easy. Residents did not like the idea of their public waterfront lands being given to a high rise developer in exchange for a few amenities. The developer used his PR firm's expertise to re-brand the development from one of "Aging in Place" to "Gateway to Crystal Beach." It also picked up on the theme of Renaissance of Crystal Beach, a theme that has already been a work in progress for several years. And to desperate people, it added the meme that it would create jobs and revitalize the community. To those who have been here since the amusement park closed, that fabrication was also flown by the residents when the Crystal Beach Tennis and Yacht Club was built almost two decades ago. The promise of revitalization did not follow that gated community and it won't happen when a vertical gated community, the Mendacity Tower, is built. The people of Fort Erie may be desperate, but they're not stupid. And they will remember this. In October. At the voting booth. |