ROTHENBURGER – ‘They really must do something’ about crime but what, and who’s ‘they’?

THEY REALLY MUST DO SOMETHING.

That’s what we usually say when we’re frustrated about the way things are going but have no answers to offer. When we don’t even know who ‘they’ is.

We just know something needs to be done and hope somebody who’s in charge will fix it for us. It’s a copout, really: an admission that we’re lazy or uninformed or simply don’t know what to do.

‘They really must do something’ is the basis of the open letter to the mayor and police this week from the North Shore BIA about street crime. In this case, though, it’s the right message. Although it comes from a business group, it expresses the exasperation and fears of everyone.

We’ve been complaining about the seemingly exponential growth in street-level crime for quite awhile. The difference is that the fed-up letter penned by NSBIA president Bryce Herman and executive director Jeremy Heighton makes a clear distinction between social-issue crime and everyday crooks, lowlifes and gangsters.

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Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.