In September of 2010, I sent a letter to Kim Craitor thanking him and our government for working so hard in order to save our Race Track here in Fort Erie.
As I stated in that original letter, I have been coming to this track since I was 14 years of age, as an adult I have brought my children and now my granddaughter here. I am also a very happy employee of the Fort Erie Race Track since April 2000. My children have worked here many years during the summer months in order to put themselves through university. We employ many, many summer students for that reason.
Here we are in February of 2012 and I am writing you once again. I write you for fear of losing my job, of losing my vehicle and worse, my family home. All of this will potentially happen to not only me, but hundreds of others if you follow through on certain proposals announced.
This Race Track represents our town.
This Race Track is our town.
To take funding away and in turn shutting us down will close this small community, Fort Erie. Fort Erie Race Track is what keeps us here. Most of the residents of this town work here. What will happen if you take this all away? We will all be on the unemployment line together, or worse yet, having to apply for welfare.
How much good will that be for our government then? We want to work hard, we want to work for our dollars and in turn we will end up putting it right back into our community. But it seems lately, we are always having to fight to keep our Race Track and our livelihood going.
In 2010 The Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, headed by Jim Thibert and his management team took over running this not-for-profit organization. In that short period of time from then until now, there have been many extremely positive changes here under their leadership and we are all very confident and excited that those changes will continue, and that given the opportunity to proceed will make our town thrive.
This is the outcome our government should be encouraging us to have. By taking this away from us, the impact on our community will be tremendous.
I pray that you will look very hard at the consequences of such a horrendous act and what this would cause.
By removing your funding here, you will not only be destroying one of the most beautiful places in North America for tourists to attend, but most of all, you will be destroying many families, and a complete community. A community that is a “family” built around The Fort Erie Race Track.
Rebecca Singleton
Fort Erie
2 Comments on "Letter to the Editor: Fort Erie Race Track is our town – don’t destroy it"
THEY DON’T CARE! When are the people of fort erie and all over going to realize that if we are all homeless and living in the streets THEY DON’T CARE.
They only care about the rich getting richer, they only want rich communities. The more of us that die off the happy they will be, less people to look after.
They want to put in more Liquor stores which is awesome for when people in these small communities take on drinking to ease their pain. Suicides, drug addition and alchollism will be rampant but, THEY DON’T CARE.
How about having the the Fort Erie racetrack try to increase wagering and attendance? Why must you get government money to support this business. If the town of Fort Erie and the community want to keep your racetrack running, then all the power to you. But not with government money, which belongs to all taxpayers.
By the way, isn’t wagering the main source of income that racetracks used to survive with? Why isn’t anyone talking about increasing interest in racing. What have you done about that? How much money out of all the government money this track has received has gone into advertising or marketing?
it’s time for the Fort Erie racetrack to stand on its own and survive like any independent business.