Assets must be protected
Dear editor: Re: Skaha Park series When you left last Sunday, your last question to me was, “Do you have a title?”
You probably noticed I was surprised. The reason being, I dislike titles as they seem to be part of class distinction. Having said that, I thought about it after you left and came to the conclusion the whole parks conquest is about titles.
I started my interest in parks in about year 2000. This was as a member of Protect Our Parks. For three years, under the leadership of Sharon Amos, we did succeed in saving Okanagan Lake Park, the Japanese Garden, and an industrial area now named Marine Way Park. That is one set of parks which was saved by a citizens group.
Since then there have been several amendments made to allow encroachments onto the Esplanade, the loss of a good portion of Lakawanna Park, practically the whole of Queens Park, and recently almost the loss of 27 per cent of Skaha Lake Park.
Why do we have to have citizens groups, called Protect Our Parks, Save Skaha Lake Park and Penticton Citizens First, to stop those with a title eating away at our parks?
The titles are mayor and councillor. They were voted into office to protect our assets.
So I did a little research on who these people are and were. We have to have Mayors and Councils. Bless them for their time but it seems that there is always a large contingent of those who have an association to the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Penticton Association and the hotel/motel association.
Those associations are also a makeup of the city’s leadership. But there rarely is a balance between the businessmen who see a little piece of green space and wish to commercialize it and those who wish to respect public parks.
We have to be careful when we elect our leaders that we have an equal influence of those who have a passion to be guardians of our health and welfare, making sure that our open spaces called public parks are just that – public.
There is going to be a selection of 13 citizens as an Advisory Board to the Mayor and Council regarding Parks and Recreation. I hope the selection will be of individuals who will respect the assets of the taxpayers.
Thank you for those who took the time to read my articles. The purpose was to give you information rather than criticism. Peter Osborne
Penticton and hope you will come visit us soon. Tanya Gabara Director of public relations Gateway Casinos