The following letter appeared in the Kelowna newspaper.  Permission to reprint came from Mr. Chichocki.

To the editor:

In Peter Emery’s Aug. 21 letter to the editor response to my Aug. 16 letter, he stated that Santa Barbara, Calif., is a paradise but now has problems such as affordable housing and homelessness.

Santa Barbara’s problems are small compared to Kelowna. Reports indicate that Kelowna is one of the most unaffordable and crime-ridden cities in Canada. Also, experts warn that Kelowna’s uncontrolled growth will lead to drought; traffic congestion is going from bad to worse; having more highrises downtown will eventually cause traffic gridlock downtown and along Harvey Avenue, which will kill downtown business.

Instead of having wide-open views of lake, beach and mountains as along Penticton’s beautiful waterfront, we have ugly walls of highrises and condos from the yacht club to Brandt’s Creek.

Mr. Emery stated that Kelowna is destined to be a city of 250,000 before long and so we have to prepare by building upwards, starting with downtown.

In reality, it isn’t that simple. Kelowna’s sustainability and survival isn’t based on cramming people into highrises. Highrise densification simply provides more room for population growth but fails to address natural limits, causing imbalance to a tipping point.

Indeed, the faster the population growth here, the faster Kelowna runs out of clean water and the sooner Kelowna becomes unlivable.

Real sustainable planning is based first and foremost on determining the limited amounts of clean water supplies and then deciding how many people can be accommodated here based on water carrying capacity in perpetuity.

Mr. Emery is wrong. City officials can’t guarantee enough clean water for a population of 250,000.

Without guaranteed water sustainability, why irresponsibly densify the downtown with highrises today then have drought force people to move away later with the downtown business community facing bankruptcy?

The reason Santa Barbara is more beautiful, functional and progressive than Kelowna is because Santa Barbara’s council and city management rely on informed citizens deciding key issues through public referendums.

In contrast, referendums are denied in Kelowna mainly because council and city management rely on the business growth lobby of the Chamber of Commerce, Downtown Business Association, developers and speculators, etc., for input and direction.

Also, council avoids referendums because referendums restrict the business lobby in getting their way.

To support the misguided, selfish business growth lobby is the fastest way to destroy Kelowna’s paradise.

You ask, how do I know?

I was born and raised here and my family roots here go back to 1929. I have seen the real paradise of Kelowna. It is being systematically exploited, damaged and ruined by the greedy, manipulating business growth network.

They take advantage of weak, complicit councils and city management.

We, the citizens, must regain control of our city to ensure sustainability and quality of life.

So, we must demand council provide referendums to let all citizens decide key issues as they do in democratic, enlightened Santa Barbara.

Robert Cichocki,

Kelowna

(250)762-7062