Drawing of former proposed skate park in Cousins Park, Peachland. (Van der Zalms and Associates)
by Dave Preston
Some council members questioned Tuesday the purpose and format of an upcoming public open house on a proposed skateboard park.
District staff has put together an open house with design company Newline Skate Parks for Wednesday, June 20. It is being billed as an opportunity for the public, and especially skateboarders, to give input into a skateboard park at Lambly Park.
Peachland council has already voted that Lambly Park is the location for the facility, but confusion in town has been apparent over whether the public will have an opportunity to give their opinions on the Lambly Park concept.
Coun. Peter Schierbeck said at Tuesday’s Committee of the Whole meeting that he hopes locale will be something that the public will be consulted on.
“This is what we indicated we would be open to,” said Schierbeck.
Although he thinks Lambly Park is the best location for a skate park, Schierbeck said he is open to being convinced otherwise.
Schierbeck reiterated that if public consultation is going to be held, it should be about the location and not just about design.
Mayor Keith Fielding noted he made a statement on May 8 that read in part, “If technical analysis should reveal Lambly Park to be unsuitable, or results in a better option being identified (i.e. one that better optimizes relevant selection criteria) the matter will of course be reconsidered.”
Cheryl Wiebe, who is spearheading the project for the district, confirmed that next Wednesday’s open house is primarily about design.
Coun. Cindy Fortin said she wonders how much what the public says about location will hold if the decision has already been made to put the skate park in Lambly Park.
Fortin showed concern about another issue related to the skate park.
“I think we’ve jumped the gun giving the contract to Newline,” said Fortin, adding she thinks the contract should have gone out to tender.
“I personally think there are more negatives to Lambly Park than Cousins Park,” said Coun. Eldon Kerbes.
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Most don’t really don’t care where the park is built as long as it is not on the highway. Get the official word from the RCMP in Westbank and see what they have to say. Get the official word from anyone that has to do with safety and they will sit council down and tell them why you shouldn’t put kids on the highway. What ever kind of propaganda our leader is feeding council must be putting them in their place.
“give kids more credit”. Isn’t there a picture of one passed out in beside their car in todays article. You mix that up with skateboards on the highway and that’s front page. Then there may be a simple accident from someone just falling while showing off on their way to the park, or boarding across the highway to get refreshments. Now we have speeds in excess of 50, 60, even 70 km/h faster than Beach Ave. on 97. What the heck is council on? In any industry you ALWAYS engineer out the safety concerns. But true to councils’ practices, they usually engineer jobs after the fact. It’s truly amazing how our leader is puppeteered. Just like the way big business ran the NDP. Everyone knows the biggest complaining is coming from the seniors center. Hey leader(?), grow a pair. I just hope Peachland has a very large insurance policy now that these issues have been brought into the spotlight. The seniors center IS the issue here. Cousins Park is still the logical choice for everything.
Who would want a noisy skate park their back yard not me. We have established an area at swimbay and the bat house youth building so why do we need to spread all activities throughout the town? There isn’t any rhyme or reason for many things that are being thrown around town just to say we have them somewhere doesn’t make them useful. Our area is limited with what can go where so keeping them together makes more sense of you want them to be used. Maybe the seniors center is the problem being smack in the middle of the recreational area that needs to expand.
The fifty plus centre is not smack in the middle of the recreation area, its tucked in the corner out of the way. Cousins Park is not our only recreational area either, just one of a few and the most visible and developed. For that matter, why not try to cut a deal with the group of investors who bought “Turner Park” and get a piece of it for the skate park. Oh yeah, then we’ll have those people saying “not in my backyard” , nimbys! We are not going to please everyone with this topic. As for Lambly Park? It is already backed onto the hiway which provides for a constant level of noise from cars and trucks which more than likely will drown out the sounds of happiness from the children playing there. Not to mention the screaming seniors who are playing tennis, the language I hear when one misses a shot. What about lawn bowling instead? They”re much more proper…………………..and don’t cuss out loud as much
Peachland miss the boat when turner park was up for sale knowing that one day green space will be hard to find close to the core.
Allowing maximum usage of our park downtown seems to be a no brainer, since topography and services limit what can go where.
I totally agree with you Slick on how council dropped the ball on Turner Park, cost of the land was an issue but I believe something could have been worked out with the school board.
Lee… just wonderin’ Why wouldn’t Cousins Park be an excellent choice? Change the diamonds to the street side. No balls hitting everything. No liability. Put the park at the back end with a net that far enough away that it is not unsightly. No liability. Washroom settled. Refreshments close by. Issue settled. No dangerous crossings. No liability. Issue settled. Lets just move the seniors center closer to the proposed “seniors housing”. That might appease the ones that are going to fight council every step of the way on giving that land away… including most of Peachland.
Anonymous, I think you should run for a council spot. Although with all your common sense I’m sure you would be stifled in quick fashion not to give the others in the herd a new vision.
Funny Slick. Safety first. I’d have to put on steel toed boots and some real good ear plugs. Besides… I don’t drink coffee, I shop locally, I eat locally, I buy gas locally, I support the community (even the oldtimers), I try and look at everyones interests,I don’t play well with others. And finally… I don’t have strings growing out my back. Lee still has my vote.
p.s. the six fugure+ wage drop would affect my fishing.
WOW!!!!!! I can’t believe the comments that are flying back and forth. To those who are of the opinion that it should be at Cousins Park, why? Why are you so adamant that it should be there? What benefit do you actually see with it being in Cousins Park? What is wrong with Lambly Park? Seriously! Consulting lawyers? Are you kidding me? Lawyers are NOT correct all of the time. That’s why we have lawyers who win and some that lose their cases. Lawyers will basically tell you what you want to hear or else they may never get any clients if they told their clients that they were wrong. Even if you are a senior in our town you are still a part of our future regardless of your age. There is going to be a liability issue no matter where it is built because the District of Peachland will be responsible for the insurance on it as a part of their insurance policy because if a youngster does get hurt there, there is the potential for a lawsuit for negligence by some parents, not all but some. And Ernie, why are you slamming the seniors? What did they do to you? I’m not a senior yet but believe that it should be at Lambly Park also. When was the last time someone drove through Lambly Park, that didn’t have a District of Peachland decal on their truck?
I spoke to a lawyer last week about this allegation by somebody at the District that Cousins Park could not be selected because of liability concerns. In short, if a child got hit by a ball, the parents could sue. Nonsense, I was told. If Council makes a reasonable effort to protect the skateboard park by putting up a fence or high netting to screen it off from the ballground and homeplate is a long way away, then any court would see that they had take all reasonable steps to protect the children and rule accordingly that it was just bad luck. The liklihood of a lawsuit succeeding would be the same as somebody standing on the sidewalk beside Beach Avenue (which is closer to homeplate!) successfully suing after being hit by a ball. Wrong place, wrong time, life’s like that.
Frankly, put up netting and the skateboard park would be SAFER than standing on the sidewalk on Beach Avenue wouldn’t it!?
Who, exactly, is claiming there is a liability issue I wonder. If this speculation on the part of Cheryl Wiebe, Elsie Lemke, or the Mayor, or did somebody actually seek legal advice about the matter? It sounds to me that this is just a contrived and false excuse to get the skateboard park out of Cousins where it belongs because some Beach avenue residents don’t want it there and to put it into an even more dangerous location beside the highway.
The liability issue is just a ruse. As far as I can perceive, this is just a few of our leaders’ friends (from the seniors center) who do not want to deal with children. Any and all excuses will be sufficient to stop the logical choice for the park. I could care less where it goes, but at least engineer out the safety concerns. Then again, management are the last ones to engineer anything. A small amount of voters made all this pain possible and now it’s a major hurdle to make it right… Im”Peach”ment? One good thing about our politics, I don’t have to leave town to have a good laugh. Then there is Barisoff and that Albas character… wow.
I think Council collectively are afraid of the wrath of the seniors…short and sweet. The reason that Peter wants it at Lambly is he wants to run for mayor one day and the seniors have very good memories….at least the influential ones
Influential? Wrath? What influence do the seniors have, seriously? They (we) are not the future of this town.
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I agree you are not the future of this town but by your present bias you old farts decide the future…not all of you mind you.
If the Cousin’s Park location would be at the end of the road access to the 50+ then this is the most suitable. I believe there was a weak kneed excuse of danger from the baseball diamond but that could easily be rectified with netting and it would be highly unlikely that any baseballs could be hit that fly the skate park in the air. I suspect the usual vocal senior voice doesn’t want it near the 50+ centre…..