Dear Editor:

After reading Steve Tersmettes letter looking for any reason to allow Jumbo (The Pioneer, December 12th issue), I have searched long and hard to find any reason to stop it.

He mentions the voting public being ignored, but our last Regional District of East Kootenay and Invermere council elections showed the anti-Jumbo candidates receiving the least amount of votes. Clearly they are not the majority. After starting four successful businesses in

Invermere over the last 45 years, I have found the vast majority of business owners are pro-Jumbo!

Reasons against? Grizzlies? Of all deaths, hunting, car and train: 100 per cent; ski areas: 0 per cent. Hundreds of grizzly tags are given out for the management area!

Global warming? As one of the highest areas in North America, it will be the last to go.

Financially viable? No one has any idea of the proponents business plan or can know its future success.

BC Liberal cronies? When the NDP were in power, they were 100 per cent pro-Jumbo, as it will create hundreds of jobs, a huge continuing tax source and benefit every business in the valley basically a no-brainer.

One hundred per cent of B.C. residents will benefit from a successful Jumbo, even the anti-group. We might even have a retail business left in Invermere.

Wilderness? The area has been commercially used for a hundred years and already has a ski business established.

Keeping them together and not starting up in new wilderness areas makes perfect sense. The only reason I see against are NIMBY and the greed of I want to hike there because I was here first.

Jobs, jobs, jobs, for our dying towns businesses.

John and Pam Nairn

Invermere