City responds to challenges of maintaining parks
By Tim Kalinowski on August 7, 2021.
Herald photo by Al Beeber -
Weeds grow up around the pump house at Legacy Park, as the City says there have been problems with the irrigation system since day one.LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com
The City of Lethbridge is acknowledging it is facing challenges on many fronts with regards to maintaining Legacy Park, and many of those challenges stem back to the park’s original creation in 2018.
“The challenge in Legacy Park goes back to the original construction contract,” explains Chris Witkowski, parks planning manager for the City of Lethbridge. Witkowski was responding to resident complaints published in The Herald earlier this week.
“We had some problems with the contractor on site,” he notes. “There are still some deficiencies we are still having to work through even three years later. Most notably it’s the irrigation. We have been having problems with the irrigation system since day one. And this year in particular, we have had a major shutdown of the irrigation system due to some failures.
“You couple that with the pretty intense and sustained heat we have been having throughout the summer– it is just really contributing to the state of the park in particular this year.”
Witkowski acknowledges residents have every right to feel frustrated about the state of Legacy Park, and it’s a frustration he and many of his staff share.
“I definitely understand residents’ concerns over the state of the park,” he says. “I know it is frustrating for the residents. It is frustrating for us as City personnel too. It’s not the state we like to see the park in, but crews are working very hard to keep up with the maintenance and overcome some of these challenges.”
With challenges surrounding the irrigation system stuck in litigation at the moment, Witkowski says the City is attempting to come up with alternative solutions.
“There has been some tree decline out there,” he acknowledges, “and a lot of that goes back to the irrigation issues. And, again, just with the hot summer we have had this year. We do have crews who are manually watering out there. It’s a big park to keep up with manual watering. So we have just implemented a new watering truck specifically for tree watering, and most of that (effort) will be focused on Legacy Park.”
Witkowski says the weed issues noted at Legacy Park have been occurring all throughout the city this summer. With an additional $100,000 allocated by city council, mainly for weed control, at the last regular meeting, Witkowski says he and his staff are trying to put together a plan on how best to use those new resources to have the biggest bang for buck.
“We are still analyzing how best to use that money,” Witkowski confirms. “It could come down to adding staff or using some contractor services to help with the weeds. We are still determining the course of action on that, but it will likely be one of those two options. We are also looking at some possible herbicide treatment. We also have inmates from the county jail who are helping us out with some of this park maintenance as well.
“It’s a program that county jail offers,” he adds for clarification on that last point, ” and we are able to utilize those resources for jobs like shrub clean-up and just some general park maintenance– they are a good source to tap into. We have been using them for the past few weeks.”
Witkowski asks for patience from residents as the City brings this weed control program online, and he thanks residents in the Legacy Parks area, in particular, for pitching in to help where they can.
“All I can ask for from residents is their patience,” he says. “I know it is hard to look at the park not in its best state, but we are working on getting those issues resolved and bringing that park up to speed with all the other parks in the city.”
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Always makes me laugh how the excuses flow forth when these things arise. The contractor who installed the irrigation was known to have a less than reliable reputation when the contract was awarded. However it was the lowest bid. The city ALWAYS goes with the lowest bidder. Having been a part of a final inspection team many years ago for the city, I brought up a number of deficiencies in one of the parks built on the westside. The senior manager signed off on the inspection. I asked why, given the clearly deficient work, I was told it was because if we make it difficult for the contractors they may not bid on future projects and it may make it difficult to get them done. Any deficiencies would have to be rectified by city parks crews, from irrigation to trees.
Secondly, the nepotistic hiring practice of hiring friends and family really didn’t make for a very motivated or productive workforce. The city HR department could easily be contracted out and applicants would be thoroughly vetted, making sure the best candidates would be hired.
We all know that there are more cutbacks coming, with federal and provincial budgets being slashed as well and those budgets help municipal governments in building infrastructure and other grants to pay of projects. This only the beginning!
For years our federal debt has hovered between $550-650 billion, but since Mr. Dressup/Mr. Apology/Mr. Let Me Pay For That (if you vote for me)/Mr. Quebec rules Canada, experts state we are now looking at a $1.4 trillion dollar debt by the end of the year, with it already over $1 trillion.
My great great great grandkids will be paying for this Liberal government’s vote buying to keep in power! Trudeau loves his power and favors Quebec, in my mind!
We have over 125-150 troublemakers who get high all day and pillage the city at night!
Arrest them and stop listening to the ‘bleeding hearts’ and make them work for a change. They get free clothing, all they want, free toiletries, 3 meals per day at the soup kitchen that are better than most seniors/handicapped/low income families, as well as all the groups now wandering the streets to feed them during the day and night along with handing them out ‘party-packs’ with syringes and other supplies to do their drugs, all for free!
We are doing this all backwards! We are pouring out taxpayer dollars to organizations to clean up the massive mess this group of people leaves on our streets every night, behind businesses, in parks, on our streets, but we do nothing, because we do not want to offend anybody, for the sake of RECONCILIATION.
From what I see, RECONCILIATION = MAKE THE COLONIALIST WHITEMAN PAY FOR US TO LIVE IN $400,000 FREE HOMES AND PAY FOR ALL OF OUR NEEDS SO WE DON’T HAVE WORK AND HAVE MORE TIME TO SHUT DOWN EVERY MAJOR PROJECT THAT HELPS PAY FOR THE OVER $17 BILLION WE ALREADY PAY ANNUALLY AND ALL THE OTHER BILLIONS FOR FRESH WATER – FIRE RELOCATION – HOMES – EDUCATION
I see over $10 billion paid out above their annual funds already this year!
Statements are made that they want what we have! THEN Pay taxes to your band council to pay for the other services like the rest of Canada, pay for your water, then you will have the funds to meet your needs! That is what the rest of Canada has to do! I would love to have a new home paid by the Canadian taxpayer, why not everyone stop working and just print money to pay for new cars, new homes, food, health and dental services, education, vacations! Sounds bizarre? That is what they are asking!
Right now you can walk down the street, as I did downtown 2 weeks ago, finding open ‘illegal’ drug use on two corners of a 5 block walk while entering Galt Gardens, seeing garbage strewn under a bench, along with two syringes and a middle aged Indigenous man, so drunk he was slobbering and slurring his words as he asked for a couple of bucks and continuing to cross the park seeing young indigenous people on blankets, visibly high on some drug! 5 blocks!
Police need to be given the authority to go in a arrest them for public intoxication of drugs and possession and then make them work to pay for fines levied! No more bleeding hearts! This is not reconciliation, this is BOHICA!
Take back our parks, neighborhoods and streets! Send a message, a deterrent that Lethbridge will no longer be other communities’ dumping ground and we will no longer allow our streets to be addict’s bedrooms/toilets and drug dens! Then put them to work cleaning up their mess! It is time!
What would you rather have:
Millions of your city tax dollars poured into all the supports needed for 125-150 deviants and services that reduce some of the impacts, extra policing/EMS?
Or taking a hard stance and taking back our city and saying that if you are going to do this, you will be arrested and you will be working for free to pay for your fines, cleaning up this city?
Let’s not forget the hundreds of thousands of dollars that people used to donate for cancer research or MS or foundations like the heart and stroke foundation that now go to support the services that are needed because of these 125-150 deviants!
A message has to be sent! The Indigenous communities banish troublemakers and even give them a ride to other centers, then we have to deal with it! Other cities are sending their homeless and addicts here! This city needs to show them we will not tolerate our city being over-run by addicts and homeless!
It is time! Who has the intestinal fortitude to shut down this gong-show we have had deal with since 2015!?
There should be at least 50-60 of these deviants that could be arrested in just days and put to work! In my mind!!!!
Do you really think they are helping reconciliation? They are turning people against all Indigenous peoples and justifiably. Who loves the people that are pillaging their neighborhoods, stealing their kids bikes/wagons and parents bicycle tow trailers for their young kids to ride, damaging homes and vehicles to steal while hookers hang out at the downtown library where your kids go!
Arrest them and put them to work! Get them off our streets, because right now they don’t care if anyone sees them doing their drugs, or committing sexual acts, because they now have a sense of entitlement because there are no deterrents and they believe this is their land!
Sage words. Well said.
Bahahahahha. It’s not even well-written let alone well-said.
Make them work for their money like the rest of us? Make them accountable for their actions like the rest of us? Make them follow the rules like the rest of us? Limit the number of “Victim cards” in their hand like the rest of us?
You realize Mr. Diver you are talking all-out equality! And that won’t be a very good fit for them
I know it wouldn’t! Let’s just say though that I am talking about the deviants. There are many hard working, respectful Indigenous that don’t want a free ride or special treatment.
We have warped the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms so far, giving them so much special treatment, the bad actors not only expect special treatment, but demand it!
We are on the road to destroying Canada as a Nation! As Indigenous groups rise up to say we demand more, angry radical Canadians increase the ranks of White Supremist and other racist groups, most with ties to the US! The Balkans is the best of many examples of how multi-culturalism doesn’t work, yet we are fracturing and have been for the last 20 years.
The US uses a ‘melting pot’ model, but Americans are still allowed to celebrate their culture and have their cultural centers, but they are American first!
The Charter still states “All are to be treated equal under the law”, not that all are to be treated equal except for Indigenous. The Gladue Principle is a legal consideration giving them special treatment, along with Ottawa asking all provinces to cut the numbers being incarcerated because they are over represented in jails. Living in Lethbridge it is easy to see why this disrespectful group is over represented. Look on the streets and see who it is committing most to the crimes, read the papers and see who was charged, and who is committing the highest percentage of major crimes in this city! Indigenous!
People have had enough! Do we give refugees special treatment in the courts that have come from countries ruled by dictators where they feared for their lives daily, then war broke out and made it worse? The Syrian refugees are just one example of these people saw genocide, saw tyranny, had everything taken from them, yet they came, respected what they were given and Canada’s law’s!
Put the deviants who have destroyed this city to work cleaning up their mess! It is a one complete cesspool of garbage/drug use debris and clothes in the area of Stafford drive where the railroad tracks are and the bushes when you come off the westbound Crowsnest Trail to get onto Stafford. Who knows how many syringes or needles from them are in that mess! Make them clean it up!
Can we please take your kids and grandkids and ship them off to a school where you’re not allowed to visit? They may or may not come back to you. That would be ok with you wouldn’t it?
Who are we discussing? The survivors of the residential school system?
You could’ve saved yourself a LOT of time and just wrote: “I am an diot” and be done with it. Wow, talk about a bunch of ignorant, poorly researched bs. People like you make my skin crawl with your stupidity.
Sounds like a city administrator trying to cover his butt.
The parks dept really needs to do at least some minimal cleanup along Crowsnest Trail through the City. Visitors to Lethbridge are welcomed with meter-high weeds, brown dead grass, and scores of dead trees along the roadsides. Quite disgusting and embarrassing.
It is not only time for an election to replace council, but also time to go through City Hall and eliminate incompetent, overpaid administrators.
Nothing will come of this. No managers ever get fired for their incompetence at City Hall.
This is what happens when an accounting firm does an audit and tells the City they need to save money and stop wasteful spending. Instead of the City brain trust trying to find ways to keep a majority of City services, they immediately cut services. There were no layoffs or wage freezes. There were only jobs removed through attrition and some job postings infilled. This is how this City had operated for decades. When they need to cut, they cut services and find other jobs for those employees.