Posted By COREY LAROCQUE
They’ve got a lot of nerve on city council to criticize the Niagara Parks Commission over the appearance of Queen Victoria Park, when the city pumps raw sewage into the Niagara River.
City councillors like to dole out the free advice, but they’re in a big glass house when it comes to telling any other government agency how to run things better.
At Monday’s meeting, council is giving a soapbox to Preserve Our Parks, a watchdog group that keeps tabs on the parks commission.
Somebody went around Queen Victoria Park in April, snapping pictures of what they call the “neglect and deterioration” of the area around the Horseshoe Falls.
Photos show rusted railings at Table Rock, crumbling concrete steps, broken glass in decorative lampposts, and sidewalks where it looks like a snow plow took a bite out of a curb.
If the well-intentioned, civic-minded members of Preserve Our Parks want to spend their free time documenting every burnt-out light bulb in the park, bless their souls.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s hard to believe tourists do the falls -a world-famous site -then run home and tell their friends about the rust on the banister.
The Preserve Our Parks slide show is on Monday’s agenda as a result of a concern Coun. Janice Wing raised two weeks ago. After she saw the photographic evidence, she was “shocked” by the condition of Parks property.
Parks commission general manager John Kernahan said the photos -taken in April -show the kind of damage that typically happens over a winter season. The commission has a budget to fix it and it’s an ongoing maintenance issue.
Seems like a reasonable explanation. The commission wisely turned down council’s invitation to come before them and explain themselves. This matter just doesn’t belong there.
www.niagarafallsreview.ca.Let’s look at the big picture.
Niagara Falls council (like every other city) is behind on its own roads and sewers -the things it’s actually responsible for. Traffic grinds to a halt when a long train goes through town, because council can’t get its act together to build an overpass at Drummond or Portage Road.
On Thursday, city workers did “emergency pumping” of sanitary sewage into a storm sewer catch basin during that heavy thunderstorm to prevent basement flooding in the Cattell Drive area of Chippawa. Raw sewage was discharged into the Niagara River.
This is an ongoing issue in Niagara Falls, where a variety of problems with city sewers force a choice between basement flooding or, in extreme cases discharging sanitary sewage into the river.
You’ve got to wonder, what’s the bigger problem: Rusty lampposts in Queen Victoria Park or a city sewer system that regularly risks basement flooding?
Over the years, city hall has offered explanations like the sewers, pumping stations and treatment plants are designed for 50-year storms. But it seems there’s a 50-year storm twice a year lately.
Preserve Our Parks members wonder if the “deterioration” they perceive is because the parks commission doesn’t have enough maintenance money because its cash flow is tied up in golf courses and the new Fury attraction.
Kernahan insists they’re not related. But the parks commission doesn’t do itself any favours by doing all its business in private. A lot of the public confusion about how the commission runs could be cleared up if it was more transparent -like a municipal government.
But the chairman, commissioners and staff are adamant that’s how the laws of Ontario are written. And provincial governments of all stripes haven’t been in any hurry to overhaul those rules.
Until we see the Queen’s Park press release with the headline “McGuinty government re-writes Niagara Parks Act,” don’t expect anything to change.
As it stands, the parks commission has the authority to manage its own affairs. In private, if you can believe it.
Monday’s Preserve Our Parks presentation is yet another case of city councillors butting their noses into somebody else’s business. Wing says it is city business, because if parks commission property looks bad, it reflects badly on the whole city.
As elected officials, they can take on whatever cause they want. But maybe they could make sure there’s no sewage in the basement of their own glass house before criticizing the flaking paint on the Niagara Parks Commission’s.
