This council and administration and the previous administration have burned their reputation with developers so bad that nobody wants to deal with the city of Blaine, and that’s why it’s a ghost town. The problem is, when you’ve developed such a bad reputation with developers that they won’t even look at Blaine anymore, the city has to offer carte blanche to developers if they’re going to generate any interest in this town.
Q: What do you think is one of the biggest challenges facing Blaine and how would you address it on the council?
Onyon: I think one of the challenges is there seems to be still a mind-set in the county and the B.C. lower mainland that Blaine is the border town that it used to be, and we’ve far outgrown that. There was a time when Canadians came to Blaine for cheap gas, taverns and adult entertainment. It’s hard to say how to change that. We’ve been trying very hard to upgrade our image because those attractions are not here anymore like they were before.
