Letter: Perhaps committee needs an attitude change

This is in response to the article about how bureaucracy is killing Summerfest. I was upset on how the city staff were seen as having a dictatorial style.

I have worked with the city staff for more than 10 years in a volunteer capacity.

I have sat on committees with them, currently sit on the Volunteer Advisory Panel, helped plan events for the volunteers in Sudbury and, for the last five years, worked with them and our committee to make the annual Pond Hockey Festival on the Rock a success.

Last year, when we were not able to have our the Pond Hockey Festival in front of Science North due to ice conditions, city staff bent over backwards to help us relocate to the Canoe Club.

They helped us get flyers out to the citizens of the area to let them know we were coming; they brought in other departments to help us figure out how we could lay out the event with short notice; and they arranged for us to hire city buses to shuttle people from the York Street parking lot after plowing the extra lot for us.

At any event that involves the city and the committees, staff have come out on their own to help and see what they could do to help us.

In all that time, I have never seen their style of work as dictatorial. Sure, there are times when the red tape is necessary for the safety and well being of the citizens of Sudbury, but they help us navigate it.

Perhaps it is the attitude of the committee of Summerfest that needs changing not the attitude of city staff.

Barbara Nott
Volunteer Advisory Panel
Pond Hockey Festival on the Rock Chair