It's a nice town -- but -- it's a very 'small' town sometimes

I just came back from coffee with a friend on this rainy morning and he mentioned that he and his wife sometimes miss the big city and find themselves getting fed up with the parochial attitudes of a small town.

“Just sometimes?” I asked.

“Often,” he concurred.

I too grew up in the city – Vancouver, to be precise – and even though I have lived here in the Comox Valley forever, I still consider myself to be a city kid. I consider myself to be that because I have never developed that proverbial and parochial ‘small town mentality.’

And, with my ongoing ‘city-slickerness’ I have never lost my sense of exasperation with some of the mindsets I see around me.

The Comox Valley is an amalgam of three communities: Courtenay (the Big Smoke); Cumberland (venerable and sometimes even quaint old mining town); and Comox (a small town that has gotten quite big and has always been notably stuck on itself).

Specifically, I live in Comox, and have for a number of years, through a couple of marriages. Comox is a picturesque waterfront community of about 15,000 souls, and it boasts some fine natural splendors that would be the envy of many communities, even here on Vancouver Island, which doesn’t suffer a paucity of striking settings.

But, Comox also has attitude problems and a sense of insularity that I find galling. Comox also has an ‘establishment’ of well-heeled and tiresome old farts who basically call all of the shots regardless of what particular council might be in charge of civic affairs at any given time.

The Old Farts (henceforth OFs) live in rather palatial homes on the waterfront and the OFs (who aren't necessary all 'old' but they are 'establishment') demand that their will must always prevail. They are oblivious that there is entire community that has grown significantly up towards the rural hinterland. It is a community of malls, houses, condos, businesses, and so forth. That is the part of Comox where I live, for example.

We are, in the eyes of the OF brigade, irrelevant. In fact, they refuse to truly concede we are part of Comox, and even if we are, our views cannot count. Only theirs can.

I’ll cite some examples of OF behavior. Next year my taxes are going up 10 percent. Why? Because the OF gang demanded a new library. They are going to get a new library. Nobody asked me about this. It was never put to referendum. It’s simply going ahead. As much as I love to read, libraries in the conventional sense are dying entities. People use the Internet for research. However, the Internet (city slicker stuff) isn’t embraced by the OF contingent. They want their very own brand new library. Big Smoke Courtenay has a wonderful and very new library that could accommodate all their needs and wants. But, it’s in Courtney, goes the parochial mindset. “We want our own library!” And, I guess you’ll be getting it, folks, and I’ll be paying for it.

Recently a major developer pulled out all stops to build a wonderfully designed and sorely needed hotel right on the waterfront. The developer crossed all the Ts and dotted all the Is. Council killed it. Why? The OF battalion didn’t want it. Might impact their view. Might bring (gasp!) tourists. Might provide jobs for people.

And so it goes. My coffee friend is a building contractor. He owns a huge chunk of property upon which a strip mall is supposed to be placed. He can’t get the building permits. The OF warriors don’t want the strip mall to exist because it might impact the little businesses in their part of town. Therefore, OF will continues to prevail.

No wonder my friend wants to go back to the city. Who can blame him?