Treatment of Levack cenotaph ‘disgraceful’

Sitting outside the Home Hardware store here in Levack on the afternoon of June 25, I noticed how our Canadian flag was hanging up on the bushes behind our cenotaph.

It upset me greatly to see that, as I felt it was very disrespectful to those that are dear to our hearts, who serve, have served and who have given their lives for our country.

The City of Greater Sudbury obviously doesn’t care enough to check things like our memorial and maintain them as they should.

I contacted both (Royal Canadian) Legion Branch 503 president John Getchell and local councillor Gerry Montpellier concerning this matter, in the hopes they would contact someone responsible to at least trim the cedar bushes down so our flag could fly freely as it should. Both told me they would see what they could do. To his credit, John did replace the worn flag with a new one that day.

Those of us who live in the outlying communities know how difficult it is to get any concerns we have even looked at, let alone corrected, but I felt that this being a matter of respect, it would help having it dealt with sooner than later.

I was wrong.

It took until a week ago for anything to be done, and what was done, in my opinion, is a damned disgrace.

Instead of trimming down the bushes, they were ripped out by the roots and a mess was left that is even more disgraceful.

If it wasn’t for the rain lately, the stones in and around the cenotaph would still be filthy with the dirt they left behind. I’m hoping that whomever worked on the problem would have respect or any brains to do a decent job, but that was too much to ask for.

I once again contacted John Getchell, and hopefully he and others besides myself will be upset enough to keep after the city to correct this. One would think that someone in charge would have some respect.

Wayne Beaudry
Levack