I moved my family from the coast to Penticton four years ago so my children could grow up in a safe family community. We have loved living here and have assimilated in Penticton life wonderfully well.
I must say, however, that I am outraged that the City of Penticton would consider having a prison in “Our” city. A few points I would like to make.
I grew up in Abbotsford. As you are aware, they have a prison and many residents have regretted the decision as it was based on information they did not know at the time. They did not know that having the prison brings a huge negative impact to the area because of the negative types of businesses and people it attracts. There have been connections made between the prison and added crime now in Abbotsford as well as the added increased gang criminal activities.
If the City of Penticton is looking at increasing jobs to our community, I recommend you start with helping our hospital gain back all of its accreditations so we would have a fully functioning regional hospital again. Doing that alone would attract a ton of positive people, jobs and businesses to the city. I know of three families personally that have had to leave the city because the hospital no longer is a fully functioning regional hospital. The recent unfortunate accident on Highway 97 with one of our high school buses required the pregnant driver to be sent to Kelowna via helicopter because our own hospital is no longer accredited to deal with high-risk pregnancies. When our own Ironman star, Tom Evans, was having twins, they needed to move his entire family to Kamloops to handle the delivery — for the same sad reasons.
I will be sending a copy of this letter to all of my contacts as well as to the media to make sure all our voices are heard regarding the matter of a prison here in Penticton. If the B.C provincial government thinks having a prison in a community is such a great idea, I highly recommend our newly appointed Premier Christy Clark have it in her own riding of Vancouver Point Grey.
Mary-Ellen Mason
Penticton