EDITORIAL
Skateboard relocation decision is anti-community! It flies in the face of a community with people, all people as their first priority.
[Editor: Read more about the West Oaks skateboard relocation here , here, & here.]
The Town of Oakville has become the real life setting for "The Truman Show". Beautiful, and controlled but not for all the people of the Town Of Oakville.
Oakville, through its governing decisions and by-laws, is attempting to sanitize our community under the mistaken catch phrase of becoming a "Livable Oakville".
Every issue that comes before this misguided council involves the sloganeering about making Oakville "livable". This is jingoism or "sloganism" at its worst. This is social engineering being done badly.
Historically in 2008, the Town passed the following: "Livable Oakville is the Town’s new Official Plan".
"The Livable Oakville Plan" is the first step in fleshing out the vision ‘To be the most livable town in Canada’. The new plan ensures that Oakville develops into a complete community that includes:
- a full mixture of housing types to meet the changing demographics of the Town over time, including opportunities for more affordable housing types
- a broad range of employment opportunities, including office and industrial uses a variety of forms of retail uses, including historic main streets, malls and
large-format stores - an array of health and educational facilities and other institutional uses that
serve the entire population - protection of the environment and an appropriate mixture of public park and trail networks that promote active living
- a transportation system that connects Oakville to the broader region and accommodates automobiles but also promotes the use of other modes of travel including transit, cycling and walking"
Residents should see in the documents related to planning a livable Oakville, that what is missing is "people".
People don’t exist in their plans or thinking and decisions made are NOT people friendly unless they are trying to please a vocal community group, or street or a ratepayer with property. The key here is property. This Council is only interested in decisions that can procure votes from the most vocal, who are always the property owner. You cannot build a “livable community” by creating a new by-law for only the most vocal.
My oversight of this Council sees that more and more people and a lively community are not part of the planning process. This is about bricks and mortar and not about people. Decisions made are not about a lively community on the streets being out and active in our community, twenty-four seven. This Council is about money and power to those already empowered.
The skateboard decision is the perfect example of decisions cloaked in bureaucracy and it is anti-people. It is anti-children. It is anti-play unless you go to the outer limits of the Town. This was the case with the anti-lights on school playing fields. They preached NIMBYISM at every meeting.
This Council’s real motto is “Sanitize Oakville” and they hide this under the guise of a "Livable Oakville".
If it moves, regulate it. If people want to use parks deny them or regulate them. If businesses make good economic decisions they don’t like go to war with them. If school boards don’t adhere to their thinking call them arrogant and pass more by-laws. Yet ask them to clean up goose guano from parks so people can actually use them and nothing happens.
In this case – skateboard parks – they are willing to metaphorically "euthanize" noisy children by moving them to the “nether-lands”. God forbid we should have children in our parks. God forbid we should have field lighting in many of our parks. Children and play are being banned in Oakville.
This Council continues to show the world that we are anti-business and anti-people by creating impulsive and arrogant, nonsense by-laws which will denude Oakville of any industry that is not lily white. Now they are embarked on a denuding Oakville of people on the streets and in the community.
The Town of Oakville attacks our largest employers and industries because they dare to think for themselves and not in unison with the Council under the misstated "Livable Community" philosophy. Council has in the past two years attacked Ford, the Halton Catholic District School Board and others because they have mandates different than the Truman Show agenda of the Town of Oakville.
The Council vision of the best community is one that is pure and out of site and rocks no boats. What should become apparent to thinking people is that this new philosophy is strongly anti-people.
Communities that are viable in the long term are vibrant and alive. Sure we are no New York City and neither is Toronto, but one just has to go to New York City and you will see neighbourhood and corner parks with playgrounds that have made the city livable again. Basketball and bocce ball till midnight or later on many corners. Places where people can go with being overly regulated.
This “sanitize and call it livable“ planning philosophy is setting the future for an unsafe and overly controlled Oakville. Planners and architects know this is counter to Jane Jacobs thinking because PEOPLE are the community.
A community is not the bricks, the streets and the by-laws. A community is the PEOPLE, all the people.
Out of sight is not out of mind. Council needs to change this anti-people philosophy. There are consultations but these are street theatre because Council has directed staff to make changes before second meetings. This was the case in the skateboard park decision.
Change this pandering to the whining and wealthy! This is not a philosophy, it is a choice.
It is a choice that in future years all the citizens of Oakville will pay a heavy price for in our community, where people are not welcome and businesses are driven from our midst.
- William A. Hoch
Tags: editorial, skateboard parks
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William,
As someone who has attended many Town Council meetings calling for public input and consultation, I am not sure it is entirely accurate to say that Oakville Town Council is doing what they want and not listening to the “People”.
From my experience, the “People” are not attending the meetings, nor are they providing useful input to Town staff.
In my experience, the residents of Oakville don’t care about local government – they just let it ride. Look at the voter turn-out percentages in the last few elections and you’ll see what I mean.
I’ve had the pleasure of reporting on recent town issues such as the Developer Fees, New Hospital or Drive Thrus. In listening to presentations by attendees at the meetings and interviewing some of them, I’d split the people at the into two groups: 1) the lobbyists and non-residents and 2) Oakvile residents, some with an axe to grind.
I said “split”, so half of the people at the meetings that I have attended are lobbyists and/or non-residents, making their opinion questional due to their “other interests” and lack of jurisdiction. The remaining half are residents of Oakville but normally they have an axe to grind about the meeting agenda or some other meeting they attened, leaving very few to provide helpful and constructive feedback. (Picture a room with 80 people in it, take away half, split it again and you see how my math adds up.)
At the end of these meetings, I’ve been left wondering just exactly how much useful input Town Staff have received so that Town Council can make a “decision”.
I suspect that Town Council is making the best decisions they can, while filtering the lobbyists, the axe-grinding and double or triple or even 10 times voting in their serveys.
Perhaps we should all stand up and attend more Town meetings and be sure to bring a few neighbours along, too. That should change the split so that more Oakville residents are at these meetings instead of lobbyists, and perhaps Town Staff will get better feedback ?!
Oh wait, I said Oakvillians don’t care about local government.
Let me know when you want to join me at the next meeting, and line up a few of your neighbours too!
- Richard
PS. As a former skateboarded and now a parent, I think that moving the skateboard park across a busy highway is not the solution. Town Council should re-think this one.
The only time that most residents show up at a council meeting is when they have issue with a decision that is about to be discussed or decided upon. The residents of our town, like most other residents have a finite amount of time, so attending a great number of meetings can be difficult. Most people are focused on what is best for them, and can be mobilized for certain causes. I’ve seen this first hand first with the decision by the Halton Board of Education trying to eliminate most of the public schools in South East Oakville, as well as the proposed power plant on the FORD lands.
What unfortunately we are seeing is apathy by constituents. The question is why, and how do we as a community change that? Why is voter turn out for elected local councillors so incredibly low? One thought is that citizens don’t believe that councillors matter much, and will not effect their personal lives. As we are seeing, councillors can have a major impact on the community, however, if the provincial of federal government decides, our councillors’ decisions will be overturned. The power plant is a great example of this. Local government has found a solution which is supported by Oakville residents, as well as Nanticoke residents. However, the provincial government is not supporting either communities.
We live in a great town with great people who have access to incredible parks, community centres, and public transit. We have a large number of actively involved Resident Associations, which help to provide council with solid suggestions. Councillors became councillors because they are passionate about the town they live in. It sure isn’t for the money. I applaud the councillors for stepping up to the plate, and would suggest that anyone who feels that have something to contribute to our community should throw their hat into the ring at the next local election. In the meantime, get involved on the neighbourhood level at a residents association. You might find you’ll enjoy getting to know your neighbours and making a difference.
I think by in large the council does listen to the people, I think thats why the park is being moved. But I don’t think they are listening to the right people. In this case I think the squeaky wheel is getting the grease and its all costing us money!
If you move the park will the trouble makers move with it? no probably not, so then will we move the splash pad and playground as well? what about the trees? Who is making the complaint — the people backing onto the park or people in the neighbourhood?
What about the halton police, can they not do anything about it? if someone is selling drugs in that area then a little surveillance should easily bring down the drug traffickers. If the police are not well enough equipped then maybe we should add some moneys to their budget instead of moving a skateboard park.
I use to skateboard, and would have died for a place like this, and soon my son will be skateboarding and I was happy to see that it was so close to home and no major streets or construction areas to cross.
Its an election year, and I want smarter decisions from my council *not* reactionary ones!
I’m with Ray on this one.
Oakville has no fast food south of the QEW. It does not allow laundry outdoors (when I last checked), and indeed it has an undeserved reputation for being for “old white people only”.
Undeserved, but banning skateboarders encourages this misunderstanding.
Municipal politics can be like that: the squeaky wheel gets the attention. It’s not fair for blaming people for not showing up at meetings. That is why we elect representatives, and we should count on them to reflect what all people want, not just the squeaky wheels.
Richard is right: this decision should be rethought. No disgrace in that, either. Rethinking shows strength.
I’m obviously going to have to disagree with the statement that the “Town Council of Oakville is anti-community”.
I say this because when ever I read or overhear someone make a sweeping comment like “Oakville Council is…”, I always wince a bit; do people really see us as those emotionless, giant floating heads staring down at Jor-El at the start of the first Superman movie? Why the sweeping generalization?
In reality, we’re a group of 13 individuals, not some out-of-touch cabal that speaks with one mind. And in a perfect world, a good Town Council should consider all viewpoints of a matter in open session and publically debate the information before reaching a decision.
For those who follow our Council meetings, they can see and hear for themselves how our system works, that we have a number of individual voices trying to consider the whole community and the separate people as debates reach decisions.
So let’s talk about the Livable Oakville Plan, listed one to five in the editorial. When you read it, it deals with public needs, but it’s not strictly about people, nor is it meant to be; it’s meant to be a legal document. It’s an outline to let developers, among others, know how we believe our communities should be built to support the people will live and work here for the years to come. It makes it clear where those parks and shops will be when we need them. For such a type of document to legislate how we react to and deal with the randomness of the human equation is wrong.
To respond to the growing and differing needs of all the people of the community – for us to keep pace with that random human element – well, that’s the job of a good Town Council. We need people who are true community representatives, considering the interests of everyone for the long term, even at the risk of angering the most vocal factions in the short span.
That said, I’ll admit I have long felt there’s a flaw in the way the town has communicated its vision – “To Be the Most Livable Town in Canada” – to our residents. I always ask the question: livable for whom and when?
Too often, people will be upset about an issue and tell us that Town Council has failed, because Oakville is not livable for them. But considering only what is or is not livable for us as individuals breeds a type of NIMBYism, I agree. Being a livable town should never be about my needs over yours.
Being ‘livable’, however you wish to term it, means we gather together and listen to differing points of view – even the ones you may not personally understand – and see a way through to make smart choices for the community as a whole. Once again, the idea of being a community representative, or a “Town Councillor”, is that we’re the ones supposed to do this heavy lifting and help build that consensus.
So back to the main point, I don’t agree that all “Town Council is…” trying to sanitize neighbourhoods, all about bricks or anti-people. If anything, I think the problems stem from a lack of clarity and certainty in properly demonstrating what the town’s vision is supposed to mean either through words or, on occasion, decisions.
And finally, when you hear or read about actions Town Council has taken you dislike, don’t gripe about the whole. Remember we’re individuals, so seek out your Councillors and ask us why. Just like in High School math, we should have to demonstrate the work we did to reach our conclusions.