Have the mayor and council truly lost their collective minds?
Proposing to build a commercial waterslide in some of B.C.’s other waterfront parks, like Beacon Hill Park in Victoria or Stanley Park in Vancouver, would get you tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
Go ahead, dress up the marina, build a nice waterside restaurant but leave the park alone. That park has been acquired as a legacy for all of the residents of our town, not just a few profit motivated special interests. I personally have no objection to a waterslide per se. There are many possible locations in town given the number of empty properties throughout our city. The most obvious location in my mind would be on the Penticton Band lands adjacent to the new bridge and proposed shopping centre. This would be a high visibility draw to all the people using the highway to travel to various destinations in the Okanagan during the tourist months.
Skaha Park is already popular, it does not need chain link fences and garishly painted waterslides to get people to use it. Mayor Jakubeit says he sees lots of support, yet the petition currently circulating in our city has already surpassed the numbers of individual votes obtained by half the current sitting council and is rapidly closing in on the rest.
Use some common sense, listen to the dissent, call a referendum or risk becoming the most embarrassing one-term mayor in Penticton’s history. Do not assume that because the entire city is not marching with pitchforks and torches on city hall that this somehow means the majority are in favour. You know what they say about people who assume. If you haven’t heard the saying, Google it.
Mike Hanley
Penticton
