Dear Editor:
Re: Elizabeth Fry project welcomed, Letters, The Record, May 23.
The term "NIMBY" has been mentioned quite a bit lately regarding the EFry proposal for expansion, and I think the people, like the Phillips, who use it in their letters have not done their homework.
The fact is EFry is in our back yard, and we have lived with them for the last 15 years.
Personally, my family and I live very close to the current EFry blue building and were here for seven years before they moved in.
Over the years we have been very tolerant and patient with the problems we have encountered living so close to EFry and if they hadn't put in this proposal to expand their facility and services, we probably would continue to tolerate them.
Generally, we have had no problem with the services and procedures that go on inside their building but when their clients leave the building, EFry seem to relinquish any responsibility.
Most of the general public have forgotten when convicted killer Kelly Ellard was charged with assault causing bodily harm, following an attack on a 58-year-old woman in Sapperton Park in 2004.
This is the park I would play with my young daughter in all the time, and I'm sure many of your readers did also and still do.
Ellard was staying at EFry at that time and no one, including the police, was aware of it.
I hate to think of how many other clients such as Ellard have stayed at or will stay at EFry in the future. Good neighbours?
But more recently, since EFry has started their "third-party administration" programs, we have noticed an increase in other problems such as theft, trespassing, people passed out or sleeping in our yards, drinking and drugs being used in our lane, problems that I can only see as increasing if this expansion goes ahead.
The residents of lower Sapperton are not against EFry or their need to grow but if their growth means invading this small, historic residential neighbourhood because it's affordable and changing the OCP and zoning the processes, maybe this is not the right location for them.
So when good people like the Phillips, start writing from a safe distance away, they have no right to talk about Nimbyism, as I am pretty sure they would not put up with the problems we and our near neighbours have encountered during the last 15 years.
If this expansion doesn't get approval we will probably continue to live here in the shadow of our big blue neighbour. But I do not and cannot support this proposal, my back yard is full.
Mark Graydon, New Westminster
