PETERS – There are no sacred public spaces, including Riverside Park
(Image: Kent Simmonds, CFJC)
IF YOU HEAD DOWN TO RIVERSIDE PARK on any given summer day, you’re likely to see members of the Kamloops Society for Creative Anachronism, also known as the Shire of Ramsgaard, re-enacting classic swordplay and battle scenes of the 17th Century.
By the sounds of the rhetoric around the future of the park, the Shire may soon be employed to defend the honour of the park itself.
A pair of proposals for Riverside had its defenders threatening to take up swords and shields this week.
First, the group proposing to build a public market facility in the parking lot along Lorne Street launched a community feedback survey to determine what people think of the idea.
Second, Kamloops council voted to create a recreation and revitalization project for the park, a means by which to apply for a grant to fund an outdoor skating rink.
James Peters is the radio anchor at CFJC, coming to Kamloops in 2006. He anchors the afternoon news on B-100 and 98.3 CIFM, and contributes weekly editorials to the CFJC Evening News. He tweets regularly @Jamloops.
A park is a place of peace and getting away from it all just for a little while anyway,not a place to buy organic carrots. I,m with Shirley.
When you deal with “sacred” you also deal with “irrationality”…watch out for the righteous ones!
” Regardless, neither proposal is worth dismissing out of hand. “……Actually, yes , they are worth dismissing.
” Riverside Park may be the jewel of the Kamloops downtown, but it will lose its shine if it goes untouched for too long. “……..Other than maintenance , the park will shine on just the way it is. Development does not make a park better, it changes it, and usually for the worse.
I do not want shopping space in the Park; put it in the old Value Village site and give the present downtown businesses a break, leave them some fallout customers.