Dear Editor,
This was sent to Sylvan Lake’s mayor and council with a copy forwarded to Sylvan Lake News for publication.
I am surprised by your decision to allow all roads in and out of Sylvan to be closed September 4th.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this decision.
It restricts the freedom of residents to enter and leave our community, and could disrupt local business.
For every other event — road work, parades, etc. — there is typically an alternative route, and you can normally adjust your route or even method of travel to return to your home.
If for some reason you seem to think restricting all access points isn't an issue, I would challenge the mayor and council to physically go to the road closure sites and talk to the residents who are being barricaded from returning to their homes.
You can politely explain, to residents and people looking to carry on business within our community, that they have to sit there for up to 1.5 hours so people in spandex can ride around on bicycles.
If there were accidents, emergency roadwork, a natural disaster, or other unforeseen circumstance I could appreciate all roads in and out of the town being closed.
However, no one in their right mind should plan to shut down access to an entire vibrant community unless otherwise unavoidable.
Call it an 'inconvenience' if you like, as it won't impact the majority of the population — there might not even be much public outcry.
However, having no designated access point in and out of the community shows poor planning on the behalf of our municipality.
I would request in the future, council be more cognizant when they 'shut down' access to our community.
Should events like this arise in the future, a single access point would be of great help so that we may enter and exit the community freely for those of us who do so frequently throughout the day.
Tyler Key,
Sylvan Lake