Dear Editor,
Our recent brush with calamity, the outdoor water ban, has left me a bit baffled and disappointed at the attitudes of some residents. I say calamity because, if you were listen to their complaints, you’d think it was the worst tragedy the town has ever faced. If you only listened to their complaints, you would know that the ban happened either because the tourists are using up all our water, or the town is ignoring the needs of residents to appease the tourists.
Last I checked, the tourists who flock to the cool waters of the lake on a hot day aren’t the ones complaining they can’t spend an hour washing their ATV in their driveway, while watering their front lawn and filling a giant pool in the backyard at the same time. Tourists aren’t the ones who are bitter that they can’t spray gallons of water all over their property when it’s forecast to rain anyway. The tourists aren’t the ones complaining their last town tax bill had a $75 charge for water use, which is obviously greed on the part of the town and not at all resulting from the volume of liquid coming from their hose.
The complaints about the town doing too much for tourists are, I feel, without merit. We’re a tourist town. The efforts the town makes for tourists ensure that they continue to pump money into our local economy. Our businesses thrive on the dollars tourists spend here.
I suppose we could dissuade the town from promoting itself and shuttering ourselves from the tourists if it’s really that big a problem for some people. If we go down that path, I propose that any resident who is currently bitter about efforts to attract tourists not be allowed to complain that the town is not doing enough to bring money in when local businesses start closing.
Patrick Zaph,
Sylvan Lake