To the editor:
It is all too apparent that the facelift to the city’s waterfront has come at a cost to the rest of Thunder Bay’s park infrastructure. Except for waterfront development, more than half of the city’s parks and recreation infrastructure has been reduced to very poor condition. Before you write this off as the whining of a “certain demographic that doesn’t like change”, these are the observations of the City’s Infrastructure Report Card in 2017. In fact, it reported the grade given to the city’s parks and recreation infrastructure outside the waterfront should be an F.
Councillor Angus called it a sad tale of woe. He called it a big fail. The obvious question arose – what was the city going to do about it? The answer came in December 2018, just before Christmas. Nothing.
The closure of the Dease pool was characteristically slipped into the agenda a scant two months after the election. The reported advice of Iain Angus, apparently still fresh in council’s mind to not second-guess city administration was heeded. “Don’t think you know it all”, Angus admonished, “because you don’t”. He might as well have just stopped at: “Don’t think”.
And so they didn’t.
The decision to allow the pool to deteriorate was obviously made long ago. The closure of the wildlife facility and attempted closure of the Conservatory reflects an ongoing city plan. The cannibalization of the rest of the city’s recreation infrastructure for the waterfront was not a 2017 aberration. It is all part of the city vision. It is the opacity, the lack of transparency that is most galling. Time and time again the city has played taxpayers for chumps.
What a wonderful campaign the city has to restore the carousel, beloved of south side residents. Does anyone really believe they are restoring it for Chippewa Park? The very fact that they let it fall into a dismal state of disrepair demonstrates their intention for the park. Who would rule out the plan to ask citizens to pay for the carousel’s restoration from their private funds, then move it to the waterfront? Carousel benefactors so concerned should seek assurances from the city, in writing, that this is not the case if they wish it to remain as part of a city-owned Chippewa Park. Council should come clean with their plans for the park.
Our council, replete with fresh-faced newcomers elected in the name of hope, have become noodle people – limp reflections of their bold campaign rhetoric. Administration is all wise. Their advice must be taken – Iain Angus told them so. But Iain Angus was defeated, beaten soundly to reflect the depth of dissatisfaction citizens have with business as usual at city hall. Now the noodle people have arrived, and any hope that the last election would herald meaning to the electoral process has been dashed.
The decision to close Dease pool without a replacement in the wings is wrongheaded. The process disgraceful. The neighbourhood has been disrespected as much as a city can disrespect a neighbourhood.
A great Thunder Bay tradition is being honoured by city administration: No bad news before an election. And we don’t like it.
William Olesky,
Thunder Bay
