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By Chuck Poulsen
Welcome to: Dirty Laundry Part III – The Odoriferous Origins of Jim Stuart Park.
I was much too generous in suggesting that a 2005 Kelowna bylaw, which made the parks committee responsible for bringing potential names of parks to council, would take it out of the backrooms.
The parks committee had four members and guess what? They were all councillors or mayor. There was no member of the public on the committee even though the committee’s guidelines called for any new park name to have “evidence of broad community support.”
I could not make this up. Here is how it worked:
The four councillors come up with a name and recommend it to council. The councillors then trot over to council chambers and vote on their own recommendation.
You may wonder which local politicians were on the parks committee when they suggested the new park across from City Hall be named after Jim Stuart.
I don’t know. That’s because after spending hours searching the city’s website and talking with staff, I can find no instance where the committee made the recommendation, which is what they were required to do. Maybe it just materialized out of thin air, such as the thin air that filled the heads of some of our local politicians in 2005. (The parks committee was disbanded by Mayor Shepherd after she took office in December, 2005. As deadline approaches, I couldn’t find an explanation as to why).
It’s been confirmed that the original vote on the name of Stuart Park was held in-camera in 1996. In-camera is a fancy term politicians use for in-secret. The 2007 public vote in council was apparently held to clean up the previous secrecy.
Here is another example of how seriously council takes it’s own policy requiring evidence that a park name has broad public support:
A walkway from the tunnel under the bridge to Abbott Street was named after Brigadier General Angle in 2005. The only evidence of broad community support was a letter from the B.C. Dragoons saying this was a good idea and agreement in a letter from the Historical Society.
The brigadier was undoubtedly a brave and fine person but if he were alive, how might he feel about such a disregard for rules of behaviour that council had imposed upon themselves?
I’ve written to mayor and council members asking that they re-open discussion on the naming of Stuart Park.
My email, in part, follows:
“Given that it is clear the name of the park across from City Hall was made contrary to council’s own policy re ‘broad community support’ for the name, would any of you be willing to make a motion that would allow current council to at least revisit the means by which the name was chosen? This does not have to be a motion to change the name, but a motion to have a discussion on the issue, which, I submit, is necessary for the credibility of the Jim Stuart name on the park.
“I would appreciate your reply, even if it is in the negative, and I thank you for your time.”
I attached poll results from Kelowna.com – the only evidence of how much public support there is for naming the Park Jim Stuart Park. The polls showed only 15 to 20 per cent support for Stuart.
I remain hopeful at least one councillor will take seriously the secretive and improper means that were used to name the park. I haven’t had any replies but I remain hopeful, which is not the same as holding my breath.
On a lighter note, Richard Drinnan, researcher par excellence, thinks council may have been thinking of Scottish painter James Stuart Park (1862-1933). Thus the name should have been James Stuart Park Park.
Says Richard: “However, having read all the minutes of the Parks Committee over the past 10 years, I can honestly say the predominant issue before the committee was the issue of dogs in the parks.
“Hopefully, council will make James Stuart Park Park a dog park too, in which case it should be known as the James Stuart Park Bark Park.”
There are all kinds of imaginative people such as Richard in our community who could come up with a good, legitimate name for the park.
If only council would do the right thing and consult with the public on what will be the centrepiece park for Kelowna.
Until then, my name for the park will be Pork Park, in recognition of the grand backroom tradition of political patronage.
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.
