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By Chuck Poulsen
The park across the street from City Hall is coming along nicely and will be a fine addition to the downtown.
Most people will call it Jim Stuart Park.
I won’t.
I have a couple of reasons, one personal, and I’ll get to that in a bit.
The shoreline has been cleaned up and will complete a scenic walk between City Park and Waterfront Park. There will be a skating rink with a refrigeration system underground so people can use it throughout the winter. It’s Kelowna’s version of Rockefeller Center. One can picture families coming to the downtown to skate. The park should be mostly completed by June but a grand opening date hasn’t been set.
We can also look forward to a sculpture of a bear, remembering that Kelowna is roughly the aboriginal name for a grizzly bear.
It will be a centrepiece and guess what’s new? It won’t be a big lump of concrete, a bulbous bronze ball or a tower of razor wire, all of which have become high-falutin’ art here-abouts, thanks to a council that doesn’t know when it’s been had.
An aside: I went into Towne Centre Mall to look again at the huge Clifford Pettman carving. It was cut out of the trunk of tree that fell in City Park in the big wind of 1997 and still stands as the most striking piece of sculpture in Kelowna. It’s worth a special visit. Take the kids.
Speaking of big winds, we’ll move on to politicians.
Reject the concept of naming anything after a politician. They are no better than us.
Who decided to name the new park Jim Stuart Park? Fellow politicians. They must be stopped from this kind of in-breeding.
Council usually insists on consultation. The people of Kelowna should have been involved in naming the new park.
I like Bernard Avenue because it was named after the first name of a guy who had a general store there – Bernard Lequime. Early residents may have had a problem pronouncing his last name.
If the public had been invited to name the new park across from City Hall, I would have suggested Chuck Park, in honour of all the Chucks who pay taxes in Kelowna. It wouldn’t have won but we could have had a good time with the contest as well as experiencing real consultation.
Kelowna has partly avoided pandering to the egos of retired politicians. There is City Park and Waterfront Park. Some things are named for just what they are: Hot Sands Beach is a great example.
Knox Mountain was named – not after Dr. Knox – but a rancher who owned it, A.B. Knox. Wayne Wilson at the Kelowna Museum tells me A.B. was sent to jail for burning down another rancher’s haystack. Thus, the most important mountain in Kelowna, along with Dilworth, was named for a criminal.
John Dilworth didn’t offer much more. He sold out in the 1920s and moved to Victoria, thumbing his rich beak at Kelowna. I’ll bet we citizens could come up with better names for both mountains if our politicians would let us.
The first conversation I had with Stuart was just after I was hired at the local daily newspaper in 1995. I called him at home in the early evening to get his comments on a story I was doing.
I’m quoting from memory, but Stuart said something very close to this: “If you pursue this story, I will be in your publisher’s office tomorrow morning and have you fired!”
I’ve been threatened with a lot of things – a punch in the nose being most common. I am up to 87 threats to sue me and hope to reach 100 before I pack it up.
The Stuart conversation was the first time an elected politician had threatened to go to my boss and have my livelihood taken away because he didn’t like a story. The story, of course, was published and I continued to work at the paper for 14 years.
So that’s the Jim Stuart I know.
It’s not his park. It belongs to all of us.
Chuck Poulsen is a retired journalist, but can’t seem to stop writing. You can contact him directly at needlepoint@shaw.ca. His column appears Wednesdays.
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Couldn’t agree with you more!
How long before they try to name something after good ol’ Walter? lol
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Re Stuart Park
I had an experience with him to and because he has not appreciate my comment and comparison I did about the subject he kick me out of is office.
I will never name it by the name Jim Start Park
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Do you think Mr Stuart would be man enough to say that he does not want the park to be name after him? Would it be a first? Why don’t we start searching for a new name now and have it by the time it opens in June
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I totally agree that the name of the park should have been put out to the public. There are so many steps to go through to build anything in this town…why not have public consultation and forums on something that has such an enduring effect on the City? S.M Simpson did more for the City of Kelowna in that area than any politician did…what was wrong with naming it Stanley Simpson Park?
Wasn’t it Jim Stuart’s protege Walter Gray that wanted to destroy that part of the city by nearly letting an out of town developer construct those huge towers called Lawson Landing?
If I remember correctly, Walter Gray was Mayor when this park was named…what was he trying to do, set the precedent so he can get his name on a piece of land someday? He was just as difficult to talk to and as indifferent to public accountability as Stuart was…
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I couldn’t agree more Chuck. Really, a mayor is a paid employee of the city. He didn’t work for the city out of the goodness of his heart. Arrogant of the current administration and Mr Stuart to feel his name should be on the park.
Just like the Bennett Bridge.
Leave the nemaing of city landmarks to residents who DONATED of themselves. Not those were paid for their time.
And let the public decide who gets the honor
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As usual Chuck, this is right on. I applaud you for your honesty. I have always thought it rather strange that sometimes we reward “paid” politicians and others with recognition for the work they are paid to do anyway. Sometime we have even pitted them up against people who are true volunteers in this community. Guess who usually won the award? Very strange
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Politicians have hi-jacked City Hall.
We should rename it Citizens Hall, and then insist on referendums on all major issues, including the OCP and the city budget.
They do south of the border, where they still have an element of democracy.
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Right on Chuck! If they really want to name a public park after an individual why not Gerry Zimmerman, the much-loved hero of the Kelowna Fire of ‘05. Gerry would be more acceptable to most folks than Jim Stuart. Case in point, when Gerry encountered his personal health crisis last year, the public received daily updates on his condition because of his popularity. Thumbs up to Gerry.
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Very insightful column. Never in a million years would I approve “Jim Stuart Park” …. at least not without hearing from the residents of Kelowna. Shame on the folks that are trusted to run city hall.
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Hey Chuck…..lets hold a walk and rally to name the park “Chuck Poulsen for Mayor” emporium of controversial yet logical and reasonable arena of fun….It’s about time someone in Kelowna burst the bubble of those morons in city hall and brought them back to reality!!!! Good on Ya…
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