Conditions make help hard to give

Dear editor: Re: Wants answers to Cedar Ave. beach (letter to the editor, Oct. 24)

Cedar Park is currently scheduled to be funded for design in 2026 and construction in 2027.

Over the past 18 months, the KLO Neighbourhood Association worked closely with Parks, Services, Legal and Grants staff at City Hall to develop a plan to fund immediate development of Cedar Park.

We had estimated a basic park access could be achieved with $800,000 and hoped that if it was just about the money, we could offer to raise half and build the park now.

In February, after many meetings and even design drawings for the new Pandosy Waterfront Park, as it would be called, we were given a fundraising budget and a draft memorandum of understanding between the city and KLONA.

The MOU required us to raise 100 per cent of the park construction costs. Since the park would be seen as an amenity for the whole city, simple beach access would not be entertained and the construction would cost $1.7 million.

We had lined up some in-kind donations for demolition and construction which were outright rejected even though past construction of a portion of Rotary Park had allowed the same in-kind donations.

A draft donor agreement gave no guarantee that donations would be used on this specific park. If our fundraising fell short, the money would be diverted to other city projects. On top of all this, if a single donor came forward with the total funding, they would not be allowed naming rights to the park.

During the municipal election, our mayor told us the city had shown its progress in park development by purchasing and developing Bluebird Park.

Bluebird Park and Cedar Park are similar sized and have similar beach area.

Bluebird park cost $12 million to purchase and $255,000 to give the current basic access. Cedar Park cost $4 million to purchase and will cost $1.7 million to give basic beach access.

Citizens should rightly question city priorities when citizen groups such as ours offer to help. Paul Clark, co-chairman, KLONA