To the Editor:
I was under the impression that the cell phone issue for Hedley was a dead issue for the time being, after the May regional district board meeting where Area “G” and other directors would not vote in favour to give Telus the letter of concurrance even with an overwhelmingly positive response from the residents of Hedley.
I was very surprised to see an ad in the Princeton Spotlight newspaper about an opinion poll for the Hedley cellular tower, and a couple of days later in your paper.
Would it not have been proper to let the Hedley residents know by mail, as not many get the paper?
I made a few phone calls to my Telus friends to see what they knew, and I was told the budget planning for 2014 was coming up, and they had contacted the Area “G” director to see if she was interested in having Telus include the Hedley cellular tower in their 2014 budget. If the director was in favour, they would meet with her, if not we can forget about it for some years. This might be the reason why an opinion poll was conducted on Saturday, August 10.
I had three interviews with CBC Radio and I was asked, “What would the RDOS do with a yes vote?”
My answer was, most likely nothing, as this poll is for the area director’s information and benefit.
She doesn’t have to do anything, she can decide what will happen to the vote, like make a director’s motion to have a rural vote and staff to draw up a letter of concurrence for Telus. She could also ask Telus to include the Hedley cell tower in the 2014 budget. We can then hope Telus will include us in the budget and we would then have cell service in 2014.
If not, we could be another few years before Hedley gets out of the Dark Age.
What prompted me to write this letter was that there were two accidents this afternoon just outside Hedley, one car flipped over, and no cell service.
Someone had to drive to the Hedley Trading Post to call 911, shortly after a stall on the highway, again Hedley Trading Post had to be used for the emergency call and Mountain Mist Store had to stay open to receive calls and the phone at the Country Market was also used in this case, these people endured some hardship due to no cell service.
A new rumour is now circulating that if you have cell service you will also get smart meters. This is absolutely not true, Fortis doesn’t use cell service to operate smart meters, so get that out of your head.
Elef Christensen, Hedley