City staff needs to give council balanced, expert advice

Public survey begins on Morrow Park twin pad arena, pool feasibility

City staff is requesting input from Peterborough citizens through a survey on the feasibility of placing the long overdue twin pad arena in Morrow Park.

In September 2016, at a public meeting run by city staff at the Evinrude Centre, consultants revealed a need for, at a minimum, a new twin pad arena to meet the city’s projected usage. This was not news to user groups; they knew it for years.

With a glitzy screen presentation, city staff and consultants regaled attendees with plans for a state-of-the-art arena complex to bring our embarrassing inadequacy in facilities close to an acceptable level.

When Sport Kawartha, representing arena users, and the Peterborough Agricultural Society together presented plans for the new facility in Morrow Park, city staff shrugged them off saying there was not enough parking. It became obvious staff had picked another site, decided on the design and that was it.

The twin pad was going to Trent University regardless. Ground was prepared, surveys done while completely ignoring concerns of location, traffic and environmental problems.

That was five years ago when staff started Peterborough citizenry down a long bumpy road that took us from the unsuccessful site at Trent University to across town and an equally fraught location at Fleming College.

Now we are back at where we should have been when this jaunt started — considering Morrow Park.

In the interim, Northcrest Arena has closed; its terminal deterioration the reason the process was started eight years ago.

Regardless of what the survey says, the citizens with interest in providing our youth adequate opportunities to play both of Canada’s national sports, hockey and lacrosse, are completely fed up with the delays and ineffectiveness of staff and council concerning this project.

Last week, council ignored staff’s original recommendations on renovations to the change rooms at the 15-year-old Wellness Centre and wisely voted them down. This time, it appears the public backlash to an unpopular plan was listened to and staff’s recommendation ignored by council.

The Morrow Park survey should garner accurate results for council to act upon. After taking it, though, I doubt it. The poorly designed first Sport and Wellness Centre survey caused confusion and initiated the negative public reaction to the Wellness Centre change-room debacle.

Sometime soon, decisions must be made on moving forward on the replacement of the Memorial Centre with a new entertainment centre.

There is already some serious debate where this facility should be placed. Although it is likely years away, maybe by then staff will have the surveying process figured out. All these delays, consultants’ reports and surveys are additional costs for expensive projects.

It is inexcusable after five years of dawdling the city still does not have a site settled upon. It only took 2 1⁄2 years to build the Toronto SkyDome, now Rogers Centre. Peterborough citizens deserve better.

COVID-19 has complicated the process to a degree but much of the delays were long before the pandemic.

Public input is part of it, but eventually the buck stops with council. Councillors need and should expect expert and balanced advice from staff and fairly obtained input from the public to make their decisions on what courses of action to take.

Based on the many reversals for recent recreational projects in particular, one would question if council has been receiving it?