Meters slowly being snuck in

Dear Editor: The installation of parking meters adjacent to Lakeshore Drive has started again. Slowly, every so slowly, parking meters are quietly being installed.

Holes have been dug and meter stand pipes are being installed on the 100 blocks of Winnipeg and Martin Streets. All that remains is to attached the meters.

It appears that the City is in the process of metering the connecting streets and parking lots surrounding Lakeshore Drive. Lakawanna Park’s parking lot was metered in August. The Loco Landing parking lot was metered in September. It looks like the plan is to slowly encircle and eventually meter all of Lakeshore Drive.

So what’s next on their metering list this winter: Power Street, Riverside Drive or the Coyote Cruise parking lot? Probably all of them.

When the beaches and parks at the north end the city are successfully metered, surely Skaha Lake Park and the parking lots surrounding the Casino and the Community Center complex will eventually experience the same fate.

Apparently, the grand plan is to meter our parks and beaches, and to privatize public park land for commercial development as quickly as possible, so we can become just like Kelowna.

With regard to both metered parking and the commercial ambitions of Penticton City Council, consider the following quotes from a letter written in The Herald, November 19, 2016 by Kelowna resident Sharon J. Simpson.

Referring to Kelowna beaches and parks, she writes in part: “The viewscape of our unique and beautiful waterfront is vanishing;”

“Our open spaces are not all potential building sites;” and, “We have so little open waterfront land left that we are forced to make a point of ‘going to the beach’ to enjoy it.”

It seems likely that secret meetings, behind the scene deal making, confidential agreements and the inability to follow the wishes of the community is going to be the legacy of our mayor and council. In the span of a single four-year term, Penticton will be changed forever if all their plans come into fruition. C. Otto Knaak Penticton