Mayor responds to park critics
Despite celebrating a revitalized park on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik’s frustration was obvious as he spoke about the criticism the Garden City’s parks have taken on social media, lately.
“You’ll go online and you’ll see postings that speak negatively about this community. Quite frankly, I’m tired of it.
“I’m tired of it because there are a lot of folks who are doing heavy lifting,” he said, while unveiling nearly $1-million of investment at Centennial Gardens park — including rebuilt stairs and a new pavilion among the additions.
The city’s parks have been the target of recent social media posts, related to hypodermic needles being carelessly discarded.
But Sendzik said residents like Fred Bowering, whom he described as “the caretaker of the park,” are working to ensure the parks are safe, has been volunteering his time for the past few years, collecting discarded needles he finds and properly disposing of them.
“He comes here and he makes sure the park is safe, not just for the young folks and the fourleggeds, but also for the folks who are using the park because they’re facing serious challenges,” Sendzik added. “But if we don’t support people like Fred.
“If we go online and all we do is criticize our park. We sit there and say it’s just full of needles, that’s not the right approach for people to take for a park like this.”
Bowering was out collecting syringes again Saturday morning, filling a container with needles he found at the library.
He also recently cleaned up Cushman Road Park, after reports were posted on social media about a girl being jabbed by a discarded needle.
Bowering hasn’t been unscathed by the work he’s doing.
“I was pocked twice already cleaning them up. I’m OK, but it scared the crap out of me.”
But recently, he said he’s finding fewer needles than he used to.
“At least on the street, the word is to pick it up,” he said. “It’s just to clean it up and be responsible.”
Sendzik encouraged people to “fight back” against the negativity, and instead focus on helping the people in need.
“When you see stuff online and they’re saying, ‘I don’t go to the park because it’s full of needles and there are people sleeping in tents,’ we have to fight back against that because we’re trying to help the people sleeping in tents, we’re trying to help the people who are shooting up. Because you don’t know their story. You don’t know how they got there, and that’s what frustrates me,” he shouted.
“The way I’m speaking now is born of frustration,” Sendzik later added, referring to his raised voice. “We’re doing something good in this park, the neighbourhood association is doing amazing things. … We have a new vision that we’re bringing to the park, bringing to the neighbourhood. Today is the first of many celebrations that we’re going to bring to the Queenston area, but we all have to own it. We all have to talk positively about what’s going on, not about the negatives.”
St. Catharines MP Chris Bittle shared Sendzik’s concern, adding the various levels of government are working in partnership to address them.
“It’s amazing to have partners both at the Region and at the city talk about the issues, that also lead to issues that we see in the park. We’re talking about the opioid crisis, we’re talking about affordable housing,” Bittle said. “We have to talk about all these things together, if we’re truly going to improve our city.”
Regional Chair Alan Caslin also shared Sendzik’s concern, adding “taking care of the people in the community who need it is extremely important.”
The park upgrades were paid for with $385,000 in Canada 150 Community Infrastructure Program funding, $150,000 from Niagara Region's Waterfront Investment Program and $385,000 in city funding, for a total
$920,000 investment.