Asking the Right Questions
Letter to the Editor: re: Survey seeks visitors’ thoughts about Maffeo Sutton Park
By Staff Writer – Nanaimo News Bulletin
Published: July 05, 2012 8:00 AM
Let me be among the first to laud our Parks and Recreation Department and the lands and assets that it manages on our behalf, but… I took the survey, and I just couldn’t stomach the cool aid.
What I mean by this is that there are a couple of hidden assumptions buried in the survey that really need to be brought to the surface before there can be any reasonable discussion. One is that the park needs more improvements despite the fact that the “improvements” recently completed weren’t, at least in the minds of many, improvements, nor have they been in place long enough to really determine what else might need to be done. It may, in fact, really be a dangling financial matter in which the phase 2 funds which have been held over are burning up in the pocket of the budget.
The other is the hidden suggestion that improvements are effectively free. There is an extensive list of possible “improvements” for check-off in the survey and none of them show any cost at all.
This is the cool aid that governments all too often serve: 1) things need their services to get improved, and, 2) the costs of these services are ignored. It’s a bit like a rich uncle taking kids to the candy store and asking them to pick whatever they would like. What the kids don’t realize until it is too late is that it is not the rich uncle who will be picking up the bill, but rather the kids themselves.
If we are going to do more improvements to Maffeo Sutton Park, then let’s start by asking whether it needs more improvement at this time, not what improvements it needs, and if we decide it really does need more improvements, we need to see the estimated costs of those improvements and whether we can afford them.
Posts and Comments on Nanaimo Governance 
Maffeo-Sutton Park: I walk the park and around the Lagoon, on my regular constitution, every day weather permitting. I live next door!
Canada Day was a blast: plenty of Sunshine with all the necessary (inflatable) entertainment for the kids.
There were many attractions, one of which was an invitation from the Nanaimo Astrophysical Society to view Sunspots, which I declined but wished I had not.
The playground was busy as it usually is if I pass on a sunny afternoon.
On occasional weekends model sail boaters race their radio-controlled craft on the lagoon,
There must be a veritable baby boom in Nanaimo if the number of strollers, some four seats, in the daily park traffic is an indication!
It is an unusual weekend that I do not hear a rock band wafting thru my open windows but no matter I enjoy music, as it never goes on much beyond dark.
Last year there was an RFP call to replace the toilets and add a concession that seems to have been forgotten. No matter, the toilets are ancient but well kept and, given the number of food carts on a busy weekend an insitu concession is quite unnecessary: indeed counter productive if it puts the carts out of business.
The park itself is an unremarkable; banal paved flat open space with inoffensive planting and seating, but quite usable.
Is City Hall thrashing around to spend more money? The talk sounds like it!
I enjoy the Golden Frame.
Unless there is an ‘event’ on the weekend there is still only one food cart allowed which is the Dogzilla hot dog vendor who has an exclusive in the park unless there is a special event ie: Canada Day.
As for the toilets, I thought the city just spend money this spring giving them an overhaul, can’t say I have actually checked them out though.
The park is a flat open space, which seems well suited to large crowds, but for the rest of the year seems to lack any real ‘park’ atmosphere.
I like the idea of adding a fountain to the lagoon, and some well place drinking fountains are sure to be added…..
I am sure there are some funds, somewhere begging to be spent. After all what is the point of collecting taxes if you aren’t going to spend them…….. :^)
The Nanaimo shoreline walk is a treasure.
The park is nigh on useless.
Not enough green space not enough beach .
The last ‘improvements’ were retrograde.
It looks like a parking lot with greenspace.
Parking seemed to be the ultimate goal during the last improvements’
Using up yet more taxpayer dollars will likely be a waste.