Boyce-Gyro park sell-off

Editor: The Boyce-Gyro Park open house presented by the City of Kelowna on Thursday, May 18 was a farce.

I went there hoping to give input to city staff on the future of the park and parking lot, but it appeared that the city had already made its decision. So why did the city waste my time and taxpayers’ money?

True community input should happen openly and before any major public changes are made.

On Monday, May 15, city council gave 1st, 2nd, and 3rd readings to a bylaw to close Watt Road to add to the parking lot — before the open house. If the city is going to just rubber stamp staff suggestions, then why pretend to get public input?

The people staffing the open house were so lacking in knowledge of the park’s history and parking lot land acquisition history that they had to be repeatedly corrected by several of the attendees. Further, their comments that there would be the same amount of parking after the sale of 1/3 of the current parking lot was totally false — do the math!

Staff commented the city needs the funds from the sale of part of the parking lot in order to upgrade the park and parking lot. What about saving money for now by leaving the parking lot gravel?

For funds to upgrade the park area, could these not come from the “new tax proposed to improve parkland “(Courier, May 8, page A3)? Or maybe from reserve funds? There must be a ‘park’ fund somewhere in the city’s coffers.

Selling an appreciating asset to pay for maintenance seems crazy. We won’t be able to buy back that property once it is built on. Please stop the sale of this property now, and put more thought into the whole plan.

Marian Grimwood, Kelowna