Downtown is dangerous

It is definitely not safe downtown.

I have lived in Kelowna for 38 years and have seen a steady decline in the downtown area.

I have worked at a lot of different places downtown and currently in the vicinity of Lawrence, Water, Leon, Bernard. I am accosted on a regular basis from the street people either drunk or high on something early in the morning as I am just trying to get to my office.

They think Leon Avenue is their own domain and wander all over the road and block it and curse and swear at you and beat on your car.

I repeatedly have to call the RCMP.

I was accosted yet again by a potentially violent person, high on something, and it left me quite shaken.

I see the RCMP and ambulance and fire attend City Park almost every day from my office window.

One day, I am afraid I will be attacked like that poor man who was killed by City Hall, only because I am a petite, 60-ish woman, a cancer survivor with no strength and no way to defend myself.

City council needs to get their heads out of the sand. They cannot ignore this anymore or pretend it is not as bad as it really is. 

Carole Normandy, Kelowna