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No pool yet for Mount Pleasant park

June 22nd, 2010 · 31 Comments

According to this item from CKNW, it sounds like there is planning going on for the park where the Mount Pleasant pool used to sit but there doesn’t seem to be any real effort to figure out how to create a pool.

From what I’ve heard from various people, the community is being told that if they want that hugely popular neighbourhood pool back, they have to go out and raise money. I didn’t think that’s how facilities were planned in Vancouver. Apparently I’m wrong.

I have to say that the whole pool thing baffles me. If there was one thing you used to be able to count on old left-wing governments doing, it was siding with neighbourhoods, especially working-class neighbourhoods, trying to save their modest amenities.

But there seems to have been barely a discussion about this, except for embarrassed “well, sorry, there’s just no money” statements. (Or weirder still, statements that the park board was losing money by operating the pool. On that basis, every facility in the city should be shut down. They all cost money and it would save everyone a huge amount if they were all closed or sold off to the Waterslides ‘R’ Us Corp.)

Okay, I admit I’m biased because I live in the neighbourhood and loved that pool, not just because I could walk to it, unlike the Kits and New Brighton pools that require definite long-distance trip-planning, but because it was a reminder of the neighbourhood pools of my childhood, where people would hang out all day — instead of going to the mall.

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