Cuts to the parks department show bad judgment

By Letter to the Editor on June 30, 2021.

Editor:
I read with dismay about the City’s plans, based on the KPMG report, to cut services to our parks.
My father was a municipal gardener in the UK. He was in charge of about 40 gardeners and labourers who cared for all the parks, flower beds set between the divided highway that went along the edge of the town, and the flowers beds and grass on all the traffic circles, as well as other flowers beds and expanses of grass throughout the town.
These areas were beautiful and often commented upon by travellers. When I left the UK in 1975, the cuts had already begun.
When I went back a few years later all of these places were overgrown, full of dead branches on trees and shrubs. The parks were no longer an enjoyable place but areas to be avoided.
Today I see the same thing happening here. Yes, because of COVID, work in the parks and other areas had to be scaled down. However, continuing to neglect these places seems an exercise in futility. Instead of regular maintenance, something that keeps things under control, we will be left with an enormous problem beyond the capability of the City to solve. Someone already wrote about the weedy rose garden dedicated to those of us who have had breast cancer.
Is this a way to bring honour to this cause?
Where we live In Sunridge, there are lots of dead trees and shrubs – is this not a fire hazard?
Lethbridge has become known for its beautiful parks,trees, shrubs and flowers.
Retirees have selected this as a place they want to live in. Will they continue to do so?
Do we perhaps have too many managers?Our taxes should go to the services we pay for and the result of paying taxes should be visible.
Ruth Kereliuk
Lethbridge