Dear Editor:
Being slow on the uptake, I just recently heard that the Volstead Act, sorry, I mean the Henkelman Act — no sales after 10 p.m. of beer or liquor — was passed as a bylaw in the Town of Ponoka.
I doubt that a Temperance League had much to do with the passing of this bylaw and I suspect the residents of Ponoka had little or no say in its passing.
I know we elected the officials (a term loosely used by any and all) to act in our best interests but did we elect them to pass bylaws without some consultation with the taxpayers of Ponoka?
I realize caring for concerns of more than 6,000 people is of great and weighty importance but to disregard input from the electorate is to disregard a democratic right to plebiscite, particularly in issues of bylaws such as the Henkelman Act of 2013.
This is a bylaw passed in a Mussolini manner and it is questionable as to whose interests it does serve and if it is even legal.
Repeal of this bylaw now must take place.
I can only sum this up by quoting, “government of the people, by the people for the people,” a statement applicable I believe, not only to federal government but to provincial and in this case municipal government, no matter that its origin was southern in nature.
For some reason council and the mayor remind me of the old song, “Money for Nothing.”
Randy White