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ReConnect a vital program

To The Editor:

This letter is a clarification to the article on Monday Aug. 18 entitled "Reclaiming Oak Park."

As Executive Director of Downtown Moncton Centre-ville Inc. (DMCI), I would like to set right a certain point of the article.

Let me assure you that the ReConnect Street Intervention Program is very important for our business district and we greatly value its presence. As you know, a healthy and vibrant downtown reflects the overall prosperity of any community and Downtown Moncton is no exception. Downtown Moncton Centre-ville Inc.'s (DMCI) partnership with the YMCA has played a major role in our overall vision for many years.

ReConnect has helped alleviate security concerns and there has been a remarkable decrease in security issues in our downtown, such as a reduction in panhandling and loitering since the inception of the program in 2001. The positive feedback we regularly receive from our downtown business community attests to this as well.

Key strategies such as "Partners for Change" and "Working for Change", have not only helped increase the business communities' sensitivity to homeless issues, but have allowed them to take ownership and become part of the solution.

While I was quoted as saying that "last year, Oak Lane was very problematic, but this summer has been really good and that the departure of ReConnect has helped," our Board feels the continued presence of the ReConnect Team is vital to ensuring our core remain a safe and secure place for the residents, employees and visitors who use our downtown.

I express regret if my choice of words was poor concerning this great program. As a DMCI spokesperson, I have always defended ardently the YMCA and the great work of the ReConnect program.

Daniel Allain,

Executive Director,

Downtown Moncton

Centre-ville Inc.,

Moncton

Better signs are needed

To The Editor:

I nearly choked when I saw the picture of two of our city councillors admiring a sign regarding bikes and cars sharing the same street. Has this not always been the case? I was upset because the city seems to have money for bike signs but not enough for car traffic. The street markings in this city are terrible or non-existent. Crosswalks were still being done as late as the last week of July and the one in front of the Dumont Hospital was the last. Is this not a busy crosswalk? Are there not priorities?

I wish we had signs to tell us which lanes are which. There is only one such sign that I have seen and it is in front of Costco. Markings on the asphalt are so small or non-existent that they cannot be seen if wet.

Just compare Moncton's signage to our neighbours. They do a far better job.

Also, in the paper recently, insurance rates are to increase in Moncton. Do you suppose there is a connection?

Harry McSheffery,

Moncton

Warming must be addressed

To The Editor:

I agree with Thaddee Renault that man cannot control climate (Green mania goes too far, 8-18). But there is nothing imaginary about affecting climate -- and there is a vast difference between controlling and affecting climate.

Obviously, Mr. Renault has not read last year's report of international scientists and climatologists. I agree with the New York Times stance that the report is a distillation of the best peer-reviewed science and that it expresses more than 90 per cent certainty that man-made emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have caused the steady rise in atmospheric temperatures and that a lesser but important role is played by the destruction of tropical rain forests. This is not a report compiled by a bunch of activists or alarmists. It is a consensus document, the inherently conservative product of three years of study and debate among mainstream scientists from 150 countries with often competing agendas. It is alarming. As Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, tells us, there will be 20 seaport cities underwater by 2050 if we do not control fossil-fuel emissions.

Our own Peter Tsigaris, an economist at Thompson Rivers University, in Kamloops, B.C., Canada, has concluded that whether or not climate change can be wholly attributed to human factors, it makes strong economic and environmental sense to take action as though it is human-caused, and mitigate the effects of global warming. He arrived at this conclusion as a result of statistical analysis.

He concludes that the cost of stating that global climate change is not human-caused when in fact it is, could be as high as humankind destroying itself.

The question now facing us is whether global capitalism and western democracy can follow the scientists' recommendations, and make the limited economic adjustments necessary to keep global warming within bounds that will allow us to preserve our system in a recognizable form; or whether our system is so dependent on unlimited consumption that it is by its nature incapable of demanding even small sacrifices from its present elites and populations.

Frank P. Belcastro,

Grande Digue