Amazing Day - Two Good News Stories

It's not often that we get good news. What a rarity then is today. Two good news stories, Two!

1. Great recommendation from Parks Board Commissioner Spencer Herbert that the city save the Mount Pleasant Community Centre building at 16th & Ontario and let it be used by theatre companies for teaching and rehearsal space.

Congratulations to Spencer for this simple and practical and welcome idea. The cost is minimal and the rewards are enormous for the artistic community as well as for the neighbourhood.

Further consideration is being given to maintaining the outdoor pool for 4 months each year, and that cost is a mere $70,000. Why wouldn't we do that?

I think these are both marvelous uses of existing facilities and we should endorse these notions fully.

2. Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts should also be given high praise for her decision to move Surrey City Hall from its current unreachable outpost to a more central location to spur on the beginnings of a real downtown core.

I mis-spent about an hour last month at the corner of 152 and 110 or was it 110 and 152? What a wasteland! Huge multi-laned streets, boring strip malls, no people walking, nothing to walk to...a classic California suburb. Possibly the worst living space ever devised by man on earth.

This is a bold and much needed initiative and Watts is to be commended for grabbing hold of this necessity and running with it. Maybe one day soon, Surrey will actually be a place worthy of working in and visiting.