Park chair not told about new stadium
The Vancouver park board had no advance notice that Empire Bowl was being converted into a temporary home for the Vancouver Whitecaps and the B.C. Lions—even though the park board programs and maintains the site.
On December 22, the Pacific National Exhibition and the B.C. Pavilion Corporation announced that the B.C. Lions would play their entire 2010 season in a temporary 27,500-seat stadium at Empire Bowl, which is located in Hastings Park. The Whitecaps will begin their 2011 Major League Soccer season at the lighted facility, which will cost $14 million to put together. B.C. Place will be closed from spring 2010 to summer 2011 to allow for the construction of a retractable roof.
The chair of the park board, Aaron Jasper, told the Straight by phone that “everyone kind of knew there had been talks going on between PavCo and the PNE.”
“In terms of the immediacy of it, no, we weren’t aware of it,” Jasper said. “We literally found out about it at the last minute.”
Jasper added that even though the park board is responsible for cutting the grass and managing programming at Empire Bowl, it doesn’t have jurisdiction over the space—that’s the responsibility of the PNE. He noted that the park board’s acting general manager, Peter Kuran, is on the board of the PNE.
“We did highlight through him to the PNE board [our desire for] accommodation of the user groups,” Jasper said.
In a December 22 e-mail to its members, the Hastings Park Conservancy questioned how Empire Bowl could have been taken away from the Vancouver park board’s management without the elected commissioners or city council being informed first.
Comments
2 Comments
Bill McCreery
Dec 24, 2009 at 12:00pm
I am not sure why but, when I was a Parks Commissioner, a Commissioner, not a staff member were on the PNE Board. Since this land is the Vancouver Parks Board's "Hastings Park", the least one could expect is to have a Commissioner on the Board &, with the Parks Board having the final say for what in effect are zoning bylaw land uses. If one looked into it, the Parks Board, being responsible for the care & custody of the City's parks, probably does. Perhaps Mr. Jasper should check. He may have more authority than he knows.
Randy Chatterjee
Jan 18, 2010 at 10:25am
Former Parks Board Chair Raj Hundal is on the Board of the PNE, and would have had to have known about the negotiations, and so also City Councillor Raymond Louie, who chairs the PNE Board. Either the PNE is negotiating major land contracts behind the back of its Board or its directors have lied by omission and failed to inform their governmental colleagues and city staff about a significant city parks policy and land use change, a 15 acre land lease, and a $40 million development.
The big loser in all of this is Vancouver's communities, outdoor recreational opportunities, and participatory sport leagues, let alone our nearly 150-year-old Canadian democratic process.
3,000 active recreational sports participants from the Vancouver Youth Soccer Association, the Vancouver Metro Men's Soccer League, the Metro Women's Soccer League, the Old Timer's Soccer League, MoreSports, Crosstown Slow Pich, Vancovuer Advertising So Pitch, Citywide Sports Softball, CIEC Softball, VIP Mixed Softball, and the Hastings Community Centre used this park space year-round, and the Terry Fox Run and Softball Challenge were also annual events there.
Who runs this city anyway?