JMA Armstrong High/Salisbury Middle School parking lot (PHOTO: submitted)
It’s not everyday an MLA receives a piece of asphalt in the mail.
Dave-Allan Gouthro is a father of a student who wanted the politicians to see the state of the JMA Armstrong High/Salisbury Middle School parking lot first hand,”The state of decay has allowed the parking lot to crumble to such small pieces, I thought if the politicians are too busy to come and see how bad it is, let’s just ship it to them with as polite a letter that I could possibly write.”
Gouthro says this has been an ongoing problem, “I don’t believe that if you are telling me in the year of a 500 million dollar surplus you’ll do it next, you’ll actually do it when you don’t have that surplus. We need some of that money for infrastructure now, infrastructure that is crumbling so I would also encourage everyone to reach out to their MLA’s and say you need them to fix this parking lot, you need them to fix this bridge, I need you to fix this traffic light.”
So far, he has received responses from MLA’s Rob Mckee and Mike Holland, who thanked him for his creativity.
He adds what he is hearing from students and parents is disgraceful, “They do try to put bandaids on it. They will go throw some more gravel down, which quickly erodes away again. The children in the school, particularly the high school, they are going out with shovels and rakes and they are actually filling the pot holes and raking the parking lot themselves. The school is just trying to do the best it can. We’re now using our children to maintain our infrastructure,” Gouthro says.
He says, “With every freeze and thaw, it gets worse. It is quite legitimately a slip, trip fall hazard for everyone walking that lot. Someone is going to get hurt.”
Gouthro adds he had a great conversation with Interim Liberal Leader Roger Melanson on Wednesday, “He says when the legislature comes back together he is tabling a discussion about New Brunswick’s troubled infrastructure. He will be using the parking lot as an example and will be bringing his piece of asphalt.
(Photo: submitted)
