To the editor,
Re: City will invite new design for iconic Nanaimo sign’s ‘O,’ May 28.
The multi-coloured ‘O’ at Nanaimo’s Maffeo Sutton Park has been the subject of controversy ever since it was installed. Open-eyed citizens immediately noticed an uncanny resemblance to the United Nations logo for their Sustainable Development Goals, which has an almost identical logo. When pressed about this, city leaders repeatedly dismissed the resemblance as some sort of right-wing conspiracy theory, even going so far as Mayor Krog recently referring to proponents of this resemblance as “bloody idiots.”
Coun. Manly mentioned the Sustainable Development Goals such as good health, zero hunger, clean water and decent work. Other Sustainable Development Goals include such laudable aspirations as access to affordable energy, gender equality, economic growth and elimination of poverty.
While such goals may or may not have merit in and of themselves, they are outside the purview of a municipal government. The priorities of mayor and council is to fill potholes, keep the water and sewage flowing, regulate development, fund emergency services and other local priorities which Nanaimo’s citizens cannot provide for themselves. None of these include prioritizing larger-scale, global issues.
The citizens of Nanaimo elected the mayor and councillors to work for them. We did not vote for some bureaucrats at the UN who developed these goals, and are now asking us to implement them. We don’t know who these people at the UN are, but we do know they do not have the best interests of Nanaimoites at heart. City of Nanaimo leadership would do well by its citizens to leave the ‘O’ a simple white.
Markus W. Säufferer, Nanaimo
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