Councillors' bid for more money for new playgrounds denied during budget talks
Guy Quenneville | CBC News | Posted: November 29, 2019 12:00 PM | Last Updated: December 2, 2019
Councillor Troy Davies says a playground in his ward poses a safety risk to kids
Saskatoon city councillor Troy Davies says the city needs to speed up its replacement of aging playgrounds.
Councillors have set aside $250,000 in both 2020 and 2021 to pay for a total of six playground projects. This annual funding is under lines for "playground upgrades, replacement and repair" plus "site furniture and amenities."
Davies, who represents Ward 4, was one of four city councillors who attempted unsuccessfully to increase that funding by another $200,000 per year during Budget 2020 talks earlier this week.
"I think if they all came and had a day at Vincent Massey and played on this playground, they'd see my perspective on it," Davies said.
He was referring to the 20-year-old weathered playground perched between the rear yard of Vincent Massey Community School and the city's Archibald McDonald Park.
"Steel grates like this," Davies said Thursday at the playground, pointing out an example of a piece of equipment that was starting to crack and fall apart.
"One kid falls and he's got a potential head injury happening here."
Lynne Lacroix, general manager of the city's community services department, said the city has replaced all of its remaining wooden playgrounds in recent years.
"We're now to the metal and the composite structure playgrounds and play structures that we are working to replace every year," she said.
Davies said he'd like to have a say in the criteria to determine which playgrounds get replaced when.
'A quality of life issue'
Ward 9 councillor Bev Dubois fronted the motion for increased funding.
"This is a quality of life [issue] for our families in the community," she said. "We've been hearing about this for many years and we never seem to give enough funding to the department."
Dubois, Davies and councillors Randy Donauer and Ann Iwanchuk voted in favour of increasing one-time funding to $450,000.
Councillors Hilary Gough, Zach Jeffries, Sarina Gersher, Mairin Loewen, Cynthia Block and Mayor Charlie Clarke defeated that motion.
Councillors then voted unanimously for the city's proposed budget of $250,000 annually. Those votes came at the very end of budget talks, at which point councillors were trying to eke out a contingency for 2020 and 2021 while also trying to keep the property tax increase as low as possible.
Council also passed $250,000 in capital funding for 2020. It was also decided that operating funding would increase by $250,000 in 2020 and by $350,000 the following year.
The current plan is to replace playgrounds in Dr. J Valens Park, Albert Milne Park and D. L. Hamilton in 2020 and Parc Canada, Canon Smith Park and Simmons Park in 2021, according to the city.
Corrections:- A previous version of this story said the $250,000 for playground replacements was in previous budgets. That is incorrect. December 2, 2019 8:15 PM
- In a previous version of this story, Lacroix was quoted as referring to the park that Davies was concerned about. In fact, even though she used a term that indicated she was speaking about the same park, Lacroix was not speaking about the same park mentioned by Davies. The city alerted CBC News of Lacroix' error on Dec. 2. December 2, 2019 9:03 PM