Kerry Park pool proposal too much too fast
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We agree with every positive word that has been written in recent weeks about the Kerry Park Recreation Centre expansion.
We think it will provide better recreation and health opportunities and bring people together. We think it will build community, and — quite simply — make south Cowichan a better place to live.
That’s why it’s painful to say we would not be voting “yes” Saturday.
The simple reason is that this project — as nice as it is — is too big, too soon.
Picture a young family man who rides the bus into the city each day to get to work. Life’s not too bad. The family’s not wealthy by any means, but it’s healthy and happy and moving forward.
One day our guy gets a promotion. It’s not a lot more money, but it is more responsibility and it opens the door to much bigger opportunities in the future. But there’s a catch. With his new schedule and responsibilities the bus won’t cut it anymore. He needs to buy a car.
The situation calls for something cheap, reliable and good on gas.
He comes home in an $85,000 luxury SUV. Never mind the trip to France they’d been planning since before they were married, the new room for the baby or saving for the kids’ college education.
South Cowichan needs to fix a rec centre that has inexplicably been allowed to drastically deteriorate. Spending $6 million to stop it from falling to pieces is necessary. Spending another $7 million or so to update and improve this 30-year-old facility to meet modern expectations is prudent. But adding a $10.7 million pool to that mix sounds premature, especially when the potential for incorporation looms and major development proposals like Bamberton are on the horizon.
If you think $200 to $400 a year folds nicely into your budget and that of your neighbours’, proudly vote “yes” on Saturday.
A pool would be a great asset.
But it feels like it’s still 10 years down the road.
