help support hastings park.




This week the BC Court of appeals will hear the petition put forward by "concerned community groups" from Vancouver-Hastings opposed to a 2006 decision that has allowed Great Canadian Casinos to install slot machines at Hastings Park. Leading the charge in this case is the Hastings Park Conservancy, a group of volunteers strongly opposed to any kind of development in the park that isn't green and that advocates for the complete return of Hastings to the community of Vancouver-Hastings (or Hastings-Sunrise).

I know a few members of the Conservancy and I have a great deal of respect for some of the things that they have done in advocating for green space and for their passion in preserving an important piece of our community. The trouble is that I don't necessarily share the vision that the Hastings Park Conservancy has of what our park should look like. Incidentally, there are a lot of people who don't.

Over the past 3 or so years that we have lived in Vancouver-Hastings and throughout the last year or so that I have actively participated in groups within the community I have heard loud and clear the battle cries of the defenders of one of Vancouver's largest urban parks (all 162 acres). Phrases like "Hastings Park must be returned to the people." or "Hastings Park is a park for the public before profit." I have heard people in conversation say that all of the buildings in the park, no matter their historical significance should be removed and that a race track that can't survive without slots shouldn't be allowed to survive at all. I have read in bulletins and in letters to the editor that "we want our park back" but I've also looked a little bit into the history of Hastings Park and at the end of the day admit that I am confused.

In 1889 the province of BC gave the 160 acre future Hastings Park to the community "for the use, recreation and enjoyment of the public." What did they mean by this? By whose standard are we supposed to measure what is recreation or enjoyment? Can we not accept that people going to the PNE, Playland, the skate park, the race track, a Vancouver Giants game or the sanctuary are doing so for recreation or to enjoy themselves? Or should we be lead to believe that the only acceptable recreation in the park is that defined by certain advocacy groups?

Shortly after the province gave our community the park 15 acres were set aside for the race track. This area, originally known as East Park was cleared by the BC Jockey Club and Hastings track was soon born, the first race track in BC. Later in 1908, 60 acres of the park were given to the PNE's predessessor the Vancouver Exhibition Association, presumably to fullfil a need for "more wholesome activities such as tradeshows for dairy farmers, loggers, and horticulturists". Since then there have been many changes and additions to Hastings Park. Buildings and attractions came like Happyland, the Forum and Rollerland and buildings went including the Purefoods building, BC Pavilion and Showmart. Our park may have served a regrettable purpose during WW II but it also proudly provided Vancouverites and British Columbians with a place to watch the BC Lions while the Pacific Coliseum gave us a place for our Vancouver Canucks to play their first NHL game.

Although I never really liked them (thanks to a certain high school music teacher) Hastings Park and Empire Stadium also welcomed the Beatles in 1964.

Despite what certain groups (and certain bloggers) would like us to believe Hastings Park has been a park for both the public and for profit for over 100 years and for the most part this arrangement has worked pretty well for everyone. Without the "profits" generated by the PNE, the track, the Colliseum and so on the full financial burden to maintain Hastings Park would fall squarely on the taxpayer. Without permanent residents in the park that have a vested interest in keeping it clean and open to the public our park would undoubtedly fall prey to vandalism, tent cities and other hazards that put the safety of those very few that would still choose to recreate and enjoy this gift from the province at risk.

Advocates tell us that Hastings Park has been stolen from the "citizens of the east end". We are told that the park was never intended for casino purposes, but I can't help but wonder who it was that said the park belonged solely to the east end in the first place. Was the word "casino" ever even mentioned in any documents way back then in 1889? Have any of the people currently opposed to slot machines taken the time to visit the new (temporary) casino at Hastings Park to determine its actual impact? I have.

I can agree in part with the Hastings Park Conservency as I believe that there is more room for greening and there is certainly a need to protect Hastings Park. The question remaining is how should the park be preserved? My version of Hastings Park includes a race track (with slots if needed), Playland, a skate park, the PNE, a shortcut for my bike ride to and from work, the Vancouver Giants, the Sanctuary, the Italian Gardens, the Hastings Little League, Disney on Ice, the Hastings Community Center and so on. My version of Hastings Park has "recreation and enjoyment for everyone" in all of recreation's many shapes and sizes.

Advocates ask us to join them in shouting "we want our park back" but I question whether or not it was ever really taken away. I say that Hastings Park has simply evolved over the last century to meet the changing needs of an extremely diverse community and those others who care to visit for good family "use, recreation and enjoyment."

small school...big bulldozer!

I really wanted to write this post (or one similar to it) about 8 months ago. In fact I did but then my own sensibilities prevented me from putting out into the blog-o-sphere. After a bit more thought and a couple of leaflets in my mailbox I've decided that mine is a tale that needs to be told.

As most people in the Vancouver-Hastings community may be aware the Vancouver School Board decided several months ago to close the Garibaldi Annex to Lord Nelson Elementary. The possibility of the school closing has actually been out there for a lot longer however, last December the Board held a meeting to determine the fate of this small annex with just over 40 students. Supporters of Garibaldi obviously and perhaps reasonably oppose this potential closure stating in the first flyer that we received that "Garibaldi has been unfairly isolated and removed from the ongoing Vancouver School facility review process and targeted for closure."

Interesting choice of words...

No one can say that they truly relish the notion of the closure of any public school, whether its in your community or not. Schools, arguably are one of the few foundations within a community that bring people together to help form bonds and memories that often last a lifetime. I'm sure that there are a great many memories out there that surround Garibaldi, some good and some not so good. But still I believe that the questions need to be asked...At what point does the community outgrow its need for the school or the school fail to meet the needs of the growing community? How much does it cost to keep a school alive for a steadily declining student population? How much do we really owe Garibaldi Annex and how do we measure this against what the school provides for us? At what point do we cut our losses in terms of the number of students attending 40, 30, 20, 15, 7?

Garibaldi School has confirmed 11 new registrations for kindergarten next year. How many grade 4 students are leaving? We don't know, perhaps next year if the school remains open someone will be fighting to save it for 30, 20, 15 students. Then what?

Alright, by now you are wondering what my point is, why am I attacking Garibaldi school, what do I personally have against the tiny k to 4 annex nestled so quaintly between Hastings and 1st and Renfrew and Naniamo? A very good question! As I said earlier I don't think that anyone is super excited about the notion of a public school closing in their community or anyone else's for that matter. The truth is that everyone (except for a few students perhaps) loves to have a school in their neighbourhood since they are good for the community, good for the social networks within the community, good for property values (hmmm) and so on. The truth is that I have a personal history with this particular school and unfortunately the memories that I took away from it aren't really that great.

Garibaldi Annex, or more specifically the administration of Garibaldi Annex made my son's first experience within the public school system absolutely miserable. It was bad for him, bad for my wife and bad for me and this is too bad because we began the year dedicated to the cause of saving this school. We were on the PAC, we attended fund raisers, you name it...we were there. Without going too far into the details of our experience, the school's administration at the time (while friendly to begin with) turned out to have everything but the welfare of our son at heart. While we thought that we were involved with his educational experience, it actually turned out that we had no idea what was going on after we dropped him off. The the staff were far less than transparent and the only item on the agenda seemed to be the labelling of our son with any "designation" that would justify the administrations drive for funding, resources and a future. What was that phrase "unfairly isolated and removed...?"

The latest flyer that we received from Garibaldi supporters (which came last weekend) does what any "save our anything" sort of flyer should do, it aims straight for the heart strings of the reader. It tells us that Garibaldi is a "small school with a big heart" and we are told that the school "provides an intimate learning environment in which children develop strong community values" Let me tell you that this was not the case while we were a part of this school. Our child was separated from the "community" as much as possible often for behaviour that most people would expect from a 5 year old.

The motto at Garibaldi Annex we are told is "We think of others", a great motto for sure but not one that our family experienced that much while we were there. But don't take my word for this alone as there are at least 3 other families that I am aware of who either pulled their children from the school early or did not return this year. I have spoken with a few of these parents recently and all report the wonderful progress that their kids are making in their new environments. Sort of makes you think that maybe, just maybe there's another reason for the steadily declining population at Garibaldi.

Or maybe I'm just a bitter parent! In all honesty though and despite my own real life experiences I do applaud those that love Garibaldi for their efforts to save the school. You know, after all is said and done I have to give the school some credit...after all if the administration at Garibaldi had not made our experience so absolutely miserable we would have never discovered Sir Mathew Begbie, a public school that has shown us plenty of "heart", has worked with our son and us and has yet to even mention the word "designation".

Even still, don't expect my name on any petition to save Garibaldi school.

On September 19, 2007 after almost 14 years working at Grouse Mountain, I started a new job. Of course I was nervous and needless to say this was a very big step for me. 14 years is a long time and almost everything I know, everything I have become and nearly everyone who is important to me, including my wife and 2 boys has come to me in some way thanks to my experiences at Grouse Mountain.

But the move came at a very good time and among other things it has allowed me to take a couple of steps back and evaluate what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, where I'm going and my reasons for wanting to get there. This move, if nothing else has reminded me of the importance of "rule number 6". (a great topic for another time).

So with the job change came an opportunity to make a bunch of pre-new year resolutions and one of the things that I promised to do was to ride my bike to work more often. Despite the cold and unforgiving weather of late this has been a relatively easy promise to keep especially since my new job is about 7 km closer to my home and some 900 feet closer to sea level (it really couldn't be closer to sea level). My former colleagues at the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition would be proud as last week I managed to ride 4 times (only a mid day dentist appointment prevented me from riding all week) and notwithstanding a few minor pains, I'm also pretty pleased with my accomplishment.

I made the decision to ride more for three reasons. First I wanted to reduce my own carbon footprint. Anyone who has visited here before knows that I believe we all need to make important changes in our own routines before we can expect anything from anyone else, including government. Second I wanted to save a bit of money by visiting the pump a little less, but most importantly my decision to ride was made to achieve the mental and physical benefits of the cycling. As I approach 40 I figure that its time I do something nice for my body.

Along with this resolution to cycle more came another important decision to trim some of the fat that I had accumulated through volunteering a bit too much of my time to a variety of organizations. This time last year I was involved with no less than 8 different volunteer boards, committee's, sub-committee's, coalition's, association's, team's and organization's. Way too much... just ask my wife. The challenge here was which ones to leave since all were important to me for one reason or another? After a fair bit of consideration and a little bit of frustration my decisions were made and one of the groups that I have since left is the Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition.

One of the great benefits of cycling to work is the opportunity that it gives you to think. My particular route is relatively calm, it takes me about 20 minutes to make the 10 km trip to and from work which is plenty of time to think about the day ahead and forget about the day behind. Interestingly one of the things that I have been thinking about the most lately is cycling.

Despite my growing passion for cycling it was pretty easy for me to leave the VACC. Despite the fact that I am cycling more these days it is becoming quite clear to me why more people aren't doing the same. Unfortunately, in my opinion this has little to do with poor cycling infrastructure and a lot to do with the cycling community. There are many types of cyclists but I think they can all be put into two general categories, the transportation cyclists and the recreational cyclists. In my own experiences (this is a bit of a generalization of course) I have found that transportation cyclists don't really like recreational cyclists and this is a problem for me. I attended a meeting several months ago where the key topic was about finding better ways to communicate with cyclists and get more people involved in our organization and with cycling as a form of transportation. The transportation cycling movement needs a stronger voice in order to deal with some of the very real infrastructure issues within our community. To get a stronger voice they need more members, simple right? One of the questions I asked was why we didn't communicate and ally ourselves more with other cycling organizations like the North Shore Mountain Bike Association, after all I was a mountain biker first and most of my mountain biking friends also cycle commute at least some of the time. Shouldn't it be easier to convince someone who already cycles in one form or another to also cycle commute than it would be to get someone who has never ridden a bike to attempt it in traffic for the first time? All but one person in the group looked at me as though I had a horn growing out of my head!

To be fair not all transportation cyclists feel this way, nor do all members of the VACC. Don't get me wrong, I also believe that the VACC is a good organization and a lot of its members are as reasonable as they are passionate about improving conditions for cycling, it just seemed to me at times that those with the most negative outlooks also had the loudest voices and I often felt as though I had to defend myself and my friends because we sometimes ride for fun!

The next observation that has lead me to believe that transportation cyclists can be a miserable bunch comes directly form my own commute. Each morning I meet the same half dozen or so cyclists along the way and each morning as I meet them I attempt to brighten an otherwise cold and wet experience by shouting out a "hello" or a "good morning", even a short "hi" in our often brief passing. I almost never get a reply, in fact I've had 2. Why are these people so grumpy? Is this what I have to look forward to as I get older and continue riding to work? I sincerely hope not. I concede that it is not always an easy decision to choose the bike over the car and some of the rides are more challenging than others but the one thing that I have found so far is that no matter what the weather or how wet I am when I get to work. No matter how tired or sore I am, how bad the traffic was and so on, I always feel good about myself when I get to where I'm going and I look at the bike that got me there.

There are at least three very good reasons to choose cycling but unfortunately it isn't, nor can it be for everyone. Transportation cyclists need to understand this and be a bit more willing to accept cycling in all of its forms if they truly hope to attract more members and the respect of other commuters. There are a few transportation cyclists out there that could really benefit from the valuable lesson contained in rule number 6.