On September 11th, the District of Coldstream Council voted No, to the request by Greater Vernon Services to send a letter of support to the ALR to change the land use on the Spicer land from farm use to non farm use for the purpose of a sports complex / park.
Shortly after that, the Vernon Outdoor Sports Committee submitted a petition to Coldstream Council in support of GVS’s application. As a result of this petition, Coldstream council decided to go to referendum.
This petition was misleading. The petition stated that, “We support the building of a new outdoor complex at 9235 Aberdeen Road that includes “fields and green space for everyone.” The petition listed the various fields that would be included as well as “trails and pathway throughout the proposed site including 4.3 km of the Grey Canal Trail”. Those who signed the petition did not have to be from the Coldstream and could be under 19.
The Grey Canal trail application is on a different property from the land proposed for the sports complex. The petition gave the impression that these two applications were tied together. The petition said, “Green space for everyone”, but the actual proposal for the Aberdeen site which had already been submitted in July did not have green space identified for the general public. There are only fields for outdoor sports users and the facilities that go along with it.
There were a number of errors on this petition where people listed Coldstream as their address, but in fact they resided in Vernon. There were also duplicate signatures. But, the most interesting signature came purportedly from David Suzuki himself.
Louise Christy with the Coldstream Ratepayers Association just happened to go to university with David Suzuki and decided to contact David about his signature on the petition. David sent back a hand written reply that read:
“To whom it may concern: I was stunned to see a petition for Recreation and Green space in Vernon that bore my name at the top. It is such a joke because whoever signed my name misspelled it and my Foundation. I do not sign petitions in any case. I hope the citizens of Vernon are informed about this hoax. It certainly raises questions on the credibility of this group.” Signed David Suzuki, on David Suzuki Foundation letterhead.
Credibility is a very important issue. The Vernon Outdoor Sports Group and Funtastic have continued to soft sell the mega sports complex to the public as a community park. They continue to say the park will have walking, biking, green space and community gardens with some sports fields. The voters can only rely on what is actually submitted within the application form by GVS to the District of Coldstream.
That application form and proposal outlines a mega sports complex with 15 sports fields, stadium, offices, storage, washrooms, change rooms, banquet hall, sound system, 1,000 parking spaces, etc. Basically all of the items listed on Funtastic’s web site under their mission to create a multi-sport facility. The GVS application says that Funtastic wants to build “Funtastic Place” a major slo-pitch tournament facility. (Page 60 GVS application – File no. 07-020-ALR). The vision is for sports tourism not a community park.
VOSC has said the plans have been scaled down and changed, but no changes have been made to the actual application form, nor have these claims been substantiated by GVS. GVS has given no cost analysis and no cost guarantees, because they say they don’t know what will actually end up in the “park”. Perhaps they should figure that out, before a referendum vote.
It should be noted that the Greater Vernon Master Parks Plan does not call for a new Athletic park for many years into the future. It reads on Page. 9, “If the park function was removed from either property (DND and Marshall field resources), the GVRPD would need to replace the site with land that could serve as an athletic park. ALR land would likely be required to meet that need.” Neither of these resources has been removed.
GVS and Funtastic have made comments suggesting that DND resources are not secure because they cannot get a long term lease. They use this rationale to justify the need for this new sports complex. However, Terri Jones, who was employed for the past year as Executive Assistant to our Member of Parliament and had worked with DND on land use requests, refuted this argument. “DND is by law only able to issue 1 year leases. That does not mean that DND field resources are not secure.” “DND has no intention of cancelling their field leases to GVS.” Terri had in fact called Mike Harrison at DND in Chilliwack to confirm that this was still the case and was told yes it was and that they would even entertain the possibility of expansion.
The credibility of the proposal for a mega sports complex is at issue because:
- The general public hasn’t had any input into the plan
- The public has not been given all of the facts
- There is a soft sell campaign to make the proposal appear as a community park, yet the typical community park attributes such as walking trails, bike paths and picnic areas do not exist on the actual sports complex proposal.
- VOSC and Funtastic keep making claims that the plan has changed, but GVS has not substantiated these claims or made any changes to the application submitted to Coldstream Council.
- There is no official plan, no cost analysis and no cost guarantees. Voting Yes, is voting yes to a blank cheque.
- Coldstream residents need to know that if this application is approved they will have only 1 vote in 6 on GVSC to determine what actually happens to the development of this site.
Contact:
Terri Jones, spokesperson for the Greater Vernon Advocates Committee545-6405 home; 550-0338 cell.
