Royal Reno Letter to Council

Councilors,

There are a number of concerns with the "Royal Reno" project, all of which have been previously communicated to the "Royal Reno" Committee to no avail. 

The first and most important area of concern is the safety of the proposed entrance to the park. The numerous issues with safety are as follows:

• The new entrance is right on the bend of Decew street.
• The new entrance is just meters from the intersection of Decew street and Minerva street.
• Decew  street is a busy street with traffic to and from the arena, soccer fields, memorial hall, medical centre and the school.
• There is no sidewalk and no provision for a sidewalk on the South side of the street.
• There is no provision for a cross walk for pedestrians to cross to the nearest sidewalk.
• There is no provision for bicycles to travel to and from the park.

Imagine for a moment a summer night, one baseball game is ending, another is about to begin and a soccer game just ends. Cars are dropping off and picking up ball players, some ball players are leaving or arriving by bicycle and some on foot, soccer parents pick up their children and travel to and from the soccer field via Decew and Minerva. Cars, bicycles and pedestrians will all be travelling that area at the same time and our children have no way to leave the park safely. This is clearly a SERIOUS HAZARD for our children. Can you the Council, the "Royal Reno" Committee and the Engineers not see this? A better place for a new entrance would be to create an entrance at the south-east corner of park onto Wellington street.  

The second major concern is that the majority of the Community does not want or need a 1 Million dollar outdoor building. If you don't believe me, simply ask around Tavistock and you will see very quickly that it is not wanted. Furthermore the project is not needed as we don't currently have high demand for the current Pavilions. Sure, you have plenty of groups that agreed that they might use the building in the future, but that does not mean to say that they would not also use the existing facilities. And yes, the old Pavilion in Queens Park could use a face lift or could stand to be replaced, but can we not come up with a different plan with a more reasonable cost?

Furthermore, the results of the survey actually illustrate a different picture than what was designed and what is being built. The data that is in the "Royal Reno" report of the most recent EZT Agenda shows that the most requested first selection in the survey is a Splash Pad and it received the second most votes overall (second only to "Picnic Area" which we already have in our current Parks and Pavilions). There were also many votes for other "non-pavilion" items such as a Public Pool, a Skate Park and New Playground Equipment, all of which are not included in the "Royal Reno" project. These items account for 47% of the first choice of those surveyed. This makes me wonder if the Committee was even working on the right project in the first place as almost half of the first choices are not Pavilion related at all. What's more is that all of the other items noted in that Survey already exist with our current Pavilions in Tavistock. 

I urge you as a Council to reconsider your decision and act with FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY and delay this project until it can be designed safer, reduced in scope and address the actual desires of the Community. If you were to scale back, include a Splash Pad and new Playground equipment in this project, I am sure that you would have great support for this project!!!

I'll finish with a very applicable quote “What is right is often forgotten by what is convenient.” ― Bodie Thoene.

Regards,

Jon Ross

104 Hope Street East

Tavistock, Ontario