Photo.. “KISS the Johnson Street Bridge event”.

It was a great day today with the Johnston street bridge group. It was a pleasure to have their help in making this a positive event. Great people. They have been working very hard to try and get information out there. Also a big thanks to Leslie Campbell and Focus magazine for squeezing in a story about the bridge despite having little advance notice. This is one of Victoria’s best arts magazine now.
The day started early. I hardly slept last night because I was dreaming of all the ways to prevent problems. I was worried that we might not have enough balloons or enough time to blow them up. I was worried about the wind and getting everything tangled in the girders. But when I woke up I thought to myself that I am blessed that the biggest worry I have is whether I will have time to blow up one thousand balloons……not a big worry when one thinks of what was going on in the world. So we just relaxed but also worked hard to set up the tent, the three tanks of helium and cut ten thousand feet of string into five foot lengths.
About thirty five people came out to help and we all worked together to tie and string and bunch all the balloons together. It put smiles on peoples faces for sure. For more information on the bridge and it’s history and what the issues are for saving or rebuilding the bridge, take a look at their web site. http://johnsonstreetbridge.org/
I don’t have an opinion on the bridge other than I want everyone to slow down and not rush this through just so that we can meet some deadline of federal money. I feel that it is important that we look at all the options and carefully decide which way we want to go. The city of Victoria has already decided. The bridge will be taken down. But a lot of questions haven’t been answered. It is being rushed and it will cost the people of Victoria a bundle in new taxes. The Federal money isn’t even a sure bet. I came away from this event today surprised at how little the public knew about the issue. Some had no idea that the bridge was going to be taken down. Or they thought that if the bridge was going to be taken down, then they didn’t know it was going to be replaced. There was a sense of lack of information. That stood out for me today and so in that way it was a success because people made a connection to the Johnson street bridge group who have many questions and answers.