As for the letter writer in the Sunday Morning star, who said, “The view (Aberdeen fields) will not be diminished with the construction of playing fields and a track oval” who is she kidding?When you can no longer see the night sky because it is lit up with the lights from 5 playing fields (number proposed to be lit) or you can not have a conversation in your home, because there is a rock concert or music blaring or have to listen to announcements my quiet enjoyment of my acreage is ruined. Not to mention my ability to work from my home. This complex will be ugly. It will be noisy. It will increase the traffic in front of my home. It will devalue my property. And I will be first in line to remove my land from the ALR if this proposal goes through. It will be the only way to recoup the lost property value due to this complex.
But, outside the reasons why I don’t want this in my backyard, this proposal is a waste of tax payer’s money. It is the wrong location for a park – because it is prime agricultural land. We already have Kalamalka Provincial Park and Coldstream in general has more parks per population than Vernon. What we are missing is the neighborhood parks in new residential areas like Middleton.
It is the wrong location for sports tourism – which should be by hotels and services. We already have a sufficient number of sports fields and considerable capacity with school fields if we simply invest to maintain them better and provide a few amenities. We need to invest money in the parks we have. Polson Park is a perfect example. I gave several suggestions as to how we could turn this into a beautiful destination park when I worked with the DVA. Instead, it has been deteriorating from lack of investment and lack of use. Let’s get the full value out of our parks and recreation tax investment, by investing wisely. Let’s send a clear message to GVS to go back to the drawing board and do the job right.
Terri Jones
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