A public information meeting held by the Wapiti Corridor Planning Society Monday night may not have done enough to address concerns about their multi-use plan for the region.
Grovedale resident Dale Smith says he thinks most people left unsatisfied, and worried about what changes could mean to their region.
“We’re going to get a huge influx of recreation users on our side of the river. There’s plans for trails and all kinds of recommendations, but we ask a lot about how you’re going to police it and control it and look after the garbage, and they had no answers for us.”
Also at the top of Smith’s concerns is provisions to turn public land private.
He adds he also feels stakeholders haven’t been properly consulted.
“They basically said, ‘well, everybody had every chance to come to our meetings because they were well advertised, and people just don’t come.’ We told them, If you people want to do this, you should come to us and have some information sessions. That’s when they admitted, ‘yeah, we should have.'”
More than 150 people have signed a petition against the plan, which Smith plans to present to the MD of Greenview, in the hopes they won’t approve the document.