NDC harassing this small school at Cornelia Ida

Oct 15, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Thank you for allowing me a space in your newspaper to air my view on the traffic situation in Cornelia New Scheme and how it affects the residents of the scheme, kids and parents of Academy of Excellence. During the peak hours of 7:15am to 9am and 3:15 to 4:30 pm (5 days per week) vehicles, cyclist and pedestrians jostle for a space on the very narrow main entrance of the scheme. Pedestrians and cyclists are forced to walk and ride into the oncoming path of vehicles because both sides of the road edge are bushy and riddled with huge pot holes. It’s only a matter of time before these pot holes extend to the middle of the roads.
A few residents of the scheme took matters into their own hands and made a complaint to the NDC about the traffic build up in front of Academy of Excellence. The NDC chose to issue a warning to the owner of the school that she nor the parents/children is allowed to use the front entrance of the school as that affects the free flow of traffic in and out of the scheme. This NDC now seems to want to flex its muscle on someone who is doing an honest business of educating the nation kids. My questions for the NDC chairman councilors are as follows:
1) You and your councilors choose to use your power to hamper kids’ freedom and parents’ freedom of using the main road to get to the school with the excuse that the school is causing traffic build up. Even kids who walk from the public road are forced to take a longer route so that they can use the school’s back gate to access their school. Are those kids causing traffic jams as well? You are forcing parents, teachers and students to use an alternative route that is not pitched with bitumen but is filled with huge craters that turn into a swimming pool when the rains come. Will the NDC take the responsibility if a kid drowns in of those holes?
2. You and your councilors threaten to picket the school and call in the media because as you and your councilors claimed, the school is causing the traffic congestion. If this was a public school, would your threat and actions have been the same? I’m thinking not. Didn’t you and your councilors know from the beginning that that was a private school being established there? Didn’t you give your approval? What if it wasn’t an approved private school but a government entity or a supermarket, would you have gone and protest the traffic situation?
3. You and your councilors said that if they see any parent park their vehicle on the parapet or a child using the front entrance of the school you will file a court order. Do you or your councilors think you have the God given right to prevent someone from temporarily parking on the parapet (not blocking traffic) or stop a student from trying to use the front entrance of the school? Any school zone whether public or private, there is a temporary build up of traffic when children are trying to get to and from school, so why do you want residents to earn the right to “fly in and out” of the scheme in their vehicle knowing fully well that area is a school zone? Why, because none of the councilors’ kids attend that school means that you don’t care about the safety of other people kids?
4. Lastly, why don’t you and your councilors divert your energy into cleaning the parapets of the main roads and fill the huge pot holes so that your residents can walk and ride safely on the main road? Furthermore, instead of wanting to bring the media to highlight the so called vehicular congestion in front of the school, why not highlight your incompetence in not fixing the many roads in the scheme especially the “dam” that is filled with huge craters at the back of the school, the same “dam” you are forcing the parents and kids of the school to use. Furthermore, please highlight your incompetence in not affixing street lights on the main road that looks like a dark dungeon in the nights.
The few street lights that are outside of the private school were paid for and installed by the administrator of the school and are intended not to only benefit the kids and teachers of the school but residents of the scheme who have to use the main roadway to reach their homes in the nights. Maybe if you had fixed the “dam” at the back of the school parents and residents of the scheme won’t have been forced to use the main entrance road but could have diverted and use that street as well. Furthermore why not weed the trench that runs parallel to the main road, the trench that is infested with weeds, crocodiles, snakes and God knows what else.
And to a certain councilor who walked into the school’s compound and verbally and explicitly abused the administrator, you have displayed total disrespect for a learning institution, the kids and teacher. As a representative of the residents of Cornelia Ida, I wish not to think of your atrocious and power drunk behaviour during official meetings of the NDC.I wish to invite the NDC to bring in the media so that us parents of students that are attending Academy of Excellence can take the opportunity as well to highlight the state of the road that we are forced to used as well as other complaints against the NDC.
Disappointed Cornelia Ida residents

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