LETTER – Some thoughts on the approval of the outdoor skating rink
(Image: City of Kamloops)
Regarding approval of the outdoor rink. In the early 90’s, Barnhartvale moms with babies decided our playground needed more than two swings and one slide. The City required this neighborhood of young families with mortgages to fund-raise $5,000+ toward the upgrades.
Other neighborhoods have similar stories. I’ve seen no reporting on how much money the Kamloops Outdoor Skating Assoc. is contributing. I assume the City applied the same standard and thus KOSA have been fund-raising during their many years of lobbying. Can anyone provide this figure?
Note that I spent countless hours outdoor skating in Dawson Creek and Edmonton. I also understand that we saved money by putting the piping in while the playground was being built.
However, it looks like we have saved short-term construction money while incurring higher long-term operating costs by putting the rink where winter comes last and leaves first.
Easy access has been another argument in favor. However, we have bus service and parking at other parks off the valley floor, such as McGowan, Dufferin and Aberdeen Highlands, a rapidly expanding neighborhood.
Or what about Pioneer and at least spread out the people and vehicle traffic? It’s too late now.
TOM RANKIN
ArmchairMayor.ca 
$5.4 million on a skating surface, not a rink, but a surface and this doesn’t include the operational expenses estimated at over $100,000 annually. Rather than spend this money on a safe swimming area at Riverside Park with a rock jetty or lagoon where thousands could enjoy a safe place to swim, we’re spending $5.4 million on top of the $6 million we spent last year so dozens can skate in the park. We have 6 indoor skating rinks with plans for 3 more and at least that many outdoor rinks within the city but we only have one outdoor swimming pool and no safe area to swim in the river and the decision is to spend $5.4 million on a skating surface. Hoy!
This is absolute insanity. Power Smart is not at play here. People Smart isn’t there either.
How much effort and cost has the City invested with replacing street lights with LED units, making City buildings more energy efficient, turning down heat by a degree or two to cut down on heating costs, likely adjusting air conditioning in buildings for the same reason, using motion detector switches for lights to rooms that are unoccupied etc. etc etc. ?
Isn’t global warming an accepted reality? The idea of trying to keep a sheet of ice frozen in an open environment is like creating an Electric Powered Glutton.
I hope some scientific reasoning and calculations for energy costs are done before this project goes any further. The decision for having this outdoor ice rink should be reversed.
I totally agree with Pierre. We are infilling Riverside park so much that we will lose even more of our beautiful old trees. Mac Island is another example of putting as many things as possible and now the landscape around the back is looking tired and worn out. As a tax payer I am sick and tired of paying for things I can’t use. Parking will be a pain as it always is at Riverside Park.
If the Outdoor skating club is wanting it so bad how about contributing to it so the taxpayer gets a break for once. I can imagine the high cost once you factor in piping, maintenance costs and landscaping repairs, not to mention the utility bill if our winter is a warm one.
Put it elsewhere and leave our park alone.
Similar questions were asked by the other few astute ones when this proposal was first pitched. One would also think since the KOSA has none other than Nancy Bepple ( a past and current councillor with a foggy mandate) as their spokesperson she would exercise due diligence and address at least some of the more pressing questions in regards to the project.
Lastly, how many of those iconic old trees growing in Riverside park will be given premature death because of this latest man-made construct in an already small area?