A teeter totter for you and a see saw for me!

Three years after ripping the equipment out of a number of local tot parks, the City has begun to give some thought to reopening and replacing some of the swings, see saws and such that provided a bit of entertainment to the younger ones over the years.

At the time, much of the equipment in a number of the parks was deemed unsafe and the city strapped for funds at the time chose to just plow over its fields rather than replace the antiquated and damaged equipment

Now it seems that the civic budget situation is apparently in better shape, and local politicians are beginning to ask if perhaps the city couldn’t spend a few dollars on the old park sites to fix them up for the community.

The Mayor spoke of the darkest days when they “had to cut every budget in sight” (well perhaps not all the budgets, as the civic politicians all seemed to get their road trips in over the years, but we digress) in order to keep the city running.

But now with a greener Prince Rupert the buzzword for council, and apparently the green rolling in to the city's coffers, the parks may be making a comeback. Just in time for the fall election…

The Daily News featured a front page story on the developments for tots and other possible projects coming up in the short term this spring and summer.


CITY LOOKING TO RE-GROW ITS WITHERED PARKS INVENTORY
Council eager to bring neglected local parks back to their former glory
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News

Friday, March 07, 2008
Pages one and three

A number of Prince Rupert city councillors would like to see a plan in place to reinstall equipment removed from the city's tot parks.

In 2005, the city stripped equipment out of five of the city's tot parks because it was deemed unsafe, and because the city had no cash to replace the equipment.

"I am wondering if we can't look at this in budget time with respect to what we are doing this year and next year," said Coun. Tony Briglio. "Are we slowly approaching the reopening of some of these parks, maybe having a game plan. I'd like to see a process. I think we all believe this is an important thing to have in our community and I'd like to see timelines that gradually move us towards this."

In 2005, the city was informed by staff that the parks, many of which were paid for by community groups, were in a deplorable condition. Two of the 'tot lots' - the Gyro Tot Lot on Ninth Avenue West and the Dolphin Tot Lot on Jamaica Avenue - were closed because it would have cost $60,000 to bring up the safety levels to the required standards.

In addition, some equipment was removed from the Ukrainian Tot Lot on Cassiar Avenue, the Kinsmen Adventure Tot Lot on Kootenay Avenue, and from George Casey Park, because required work would have cost an additional $30,000.

However, Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond said it became clear during the city's Quality of Life Official Community Plan (OCP) that people value green spaces in the community.

"We did hit a point in the darkest of the dark days when we were cutting every budget in sight. We received a report about the safety of the playground equipment in a number of our parks and, obviously, a community with money would have replaced that equipment but we had no choice but to go in and remove the unsafe equipment from these tot parks," he said.

"We all agreed and we heard the feedback in the Quality of Life OCP survey process that those were things people really valued."

He said it would be a good thing to have a plan in place so people don't believe the reopening of some of the city's parks have been put off forever.

"Whenever you go through times when money is in short supply, people can live with that if they can see the path out," Pond said.

In addition, the city is also applying for a $100,000 grant to continue to upgrade the new walkway along George Hills Way. The city is working in partnership with community groups to cover the remainder of the $200,000 project. Last week, they applied for the funds through the LocalMotion Program in order to improve access along the walkway by building a pedestrian bridge to link up with the new trail along the Cow Bay Bridge and completing the walkway all the way to Rushbrook floats.

The new waterfront walkway connecting with the Millennium Walkway in Cow Bay was a job-creation program at the Hecate Strait Employment Development Society.

It was installed along the 750 metres of path running from Cow Bay to the B.C. Packers turn-off in the fall of 2006.