North Hatley council fields complaints from citizens about Pleasantview Beach management
While the North Hatley Recreational Society (NHRS) has suspended its activities for the summer, citizens from the village and neighbouring towns aren’t ready to see the volunteer run non-profit walk away from the management of the public beach.
North Hatley council was grilled for over an hour by locals wondering what’s to come for the summer at the beach.
After over 50 years of running the beach activities including swimming, sailing and tennis, the NHRS opted to step aside.
The decision was the result of a breakdown in negotiations between NHRS and the municipality, which had imposed a number of conditions on the organization for the summer.
According to NHRS President Mathieu Devinat, the conditions were presented as non-negotiable and would have caused the volunteer-run non-profit to run a deficit for the summer, something that was unacceptable, Devinat said.
Leading up to Monday evening’s council meeting, a group of around 20 protestors gathered next to town hall before with signs about the beach and NHRS.
Once the meeting began, over an hour was spent discussing the management of Pleasant View, which will be undertaken by the municipality this summer.
Before question period began, North Hatley Mayor Michael Page recognized the work done by the NHRS over the years and its contribution to the community.
“Everyone here on the council believes that,” Page said. “It was never in our goals to run the beach. We have enough to do,” he said.
Questions began with the submission of a petition asking council to allow the NHRS to assume management of the beach this summer with the agreement from previous years, while forming a bipartisan committee to help decide on a course of action for next year to the satisfaction of citizens, the village and NHRS.
With online and hard copies, the petition gathered a total of roughly 500 signatures.
The bulk of the questions and issues raised about the beach stem from the municipality’s decision to make access to the beach free for North Hatley residents while increasing membership fees for non-residents. The village has also said it will ensure that the front gate of the beach is locked, preventing access outside of supervised hours.
Citizens were upset by the town’s suggestion that the decision to lock the gate was a security measure, pointing out that Riverside and Dreamland park both have open access to water and are unsupervised.
Page responded by saying the closing of the beach outside supervised hours was both a legal and moral issue. Referring to insurers, Page said that since there is a fence and gate, there is an expectation that it be used.
“We’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Page said, explaining that the fence was an issue inherited from the NHRS, which had installed it.
The next suggestion from citizens was to simply remove the fence. Page replied that the town would be held responsible if there were ever a drowning incident.
The town’s new financial model for the beach was also called into question, wondering if making it free for North Hatley residents would increase costs to the town, which will ultimately fall back on taxpayers.
There was also reference made to a deteriorating relationship between the municipality and NHRS in recent years and the lack of a liason between the two parties.
After over an hour of questions and pleas to return to the negotiating table, close to half the citizens left the meeting before council continued with the remainder of the items on the agenda.