Park hypocrisy

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star Published: June 16, 2009 7:00 PM

The City of Vernon may be oblivious to the hypocrisy but it’s there for the entire world to see. It all started in April when council decided to investigate how Polson Park can be redeveloped. City employees were ordered to push their already busy agenda aside and meet with user groups even though Polson Park falls under the operational jurisdiction of the North Okanagan Regional District. That consultation report went before council last week and it was decided to present it to NORD. But the civic leaders went a step further and decided to have their own session on the park. “This is one where council needs to have a vision,” said Coun. Patrick Nicol.

Now don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with vision and Polson Park is certainly in need of it. It’s old, it’s tired and many people avoid the so-called Jewel in the Crown because of criminal activities there. And the park hasn’t been the same since the grandstand was burned down in 2006. But except for the fact that the city owns Polson Park, what goes on there is outside of its jurisdiction. NORD has been given responsibility for parks and recreation in Greater Vernon, and with three representatives at the table, the city certainly has a voice.

Here, though, is where the hypocrisy really comes in. At the same time that the city is pushing its weight around over parks, it’s questioning the District of Coldstream for doing the same thing. Now if you haven’t been following the inner workings of Greater Vernon politics like a good citizen, here’s a quick refresher. Coldstream wants more control over what it deems to be local parks and it has demanded that NORD establish a group to classify regional and local parks and determine a decision-making process for each category. One suggestion has revolved around Coldstream possibly maintaining some greenspaces to a higher standard than NORD is. The concept, though, has been given a rough ride by Vernon.

“Why form a committee when we already have a committee? Why are we doing this?” said Coun. Jack Gilroy. Mayor Wayne Lippert believes the parks function has worked well. “We are looking after issues and input from each jurisdiction has been looked at,” he said. But if the parks and recreation board is working so well, why are Lippert and the rest of his council trying to circumvent the authority of it? The city will likely deny it is overstepping its bounds, but that’s the only way to consider special meetings and diverting limited staff time to something not under its domain. Now this isn’t to say that NORD couldn’t do a better job with parks, and it particularly dropped the ball with the grandstand. But when Vernon is telling Coldstream to work within the existing system, shouldn’t the city follow the same process?