Dear editor,
I have to express my deepest concerns regarding the new park improvement at 51 St./57 Ave. and 52 St./54 Ave. It shows me how disconnected our council is from us citizens.
It was last year, fall 2019, when I attended a council meeting with my wife Lorenza and son Ethan Geuder, making a point that our kids need playgrounds. A playground in the exact locations where now the new park improvement is planned. Playgrounds which got removed by the town in summer 2019 for the reason of being unsafe.
In this area live a lot of kids who attended those playgrounds daily including our son Ethan, where he met his friends. Kids who are not able to walk alone to Centennial Park because both parents are working and the walk for these young kids to make alone is too far and unsafe. Unsafe because of our driving behaviour and driving speed in Ponoka, which also doesn’t get solved.
As we asked council kindly at the time, we parents and kids need to bring the playground back. But I was told as per Mayor Bonnett the town has no money for that.
What we create now has no value to the town. Why, this new park place will not be used by kids, nor adults, in fact because they are so useless at the spot where they are located and they will probably be destroyed and vandalized in no time, from people who have nothing better to do.
I urge the council to go back to the drawing board and please incorporate some playground areas, where kids can play and parents will watch. Otherwise this good idea is again a bad investment in our town.
Edwin Geuder,
Ponoka