Last week, in response to a Chief story updating the community on the proposal to put a temporary pump track on two acres of District of Squamish-owned land next to the Mamquam Blind Channel, a reader posted a comment to the effect that, "And we're spending taxpayer dollars on a kids' amusement because?"
The commenter deliberately let his or her sentence trail off, presumably asking others to fill in the blank. We couldn't have written a better segue ourselves. After all, asking open-ended questions encourages community involvement in public decision-making. That's why increasingly, The Chief has been posting those sorts of questions on our Facebook page.
More to the point, this writer would like to offer a few possible answers to the question:
because as taxpayers, we need to support healthy outdoor activity in a variety of ways, be it by putting playgrounds in parks, building and maintaining sports fields, swimming pools and skating rinks and yes, bicycle skills parks;
because, while it would be nice if private business and industry were willing and able to pay the freight for building and maintaining such facilities in the public interest, there seems to be a shortage of those sorts of businesses in Squamish and most other communities;
because while businesses, clubs and societies often build and maintain facilities like curling rinks, golf courses, bowling alleys, movie theatres and pool halls, there's only so much taxpayers and their representatives can do in this regard. While government can support zoning and economic-development initiatives that encourage those initiatives, ultimately some have to stand on their own.
North Americans like to say the industrialized world operates in a free-market economy, but really, it's a mixed system: Services that are needed or desired, but aren't supplied by the free market, mostly are fulfilled by government. Those include schools, libraries, police and fire protection, health care and yes, recreation.
Do we think a bicycle pump track is the best use -even temporarily - for two acres of prime, municipally owned land next to a waterway and adjacent to downtown Squamish? Not necessarily. But this writer isn't about to follow along with those who voted to "sell it off for condos" in a recent Chief online poll.
Ultimately, the land should include at least partly, if not exclusively, a recreational use.
- David Burke
