I am actually anticipating a favourable hearing from Council on the demolition of old buildings an replacing them with new.
A person could be twenty years on a Council without having an opportunity to invest one's ideas and enthusiasm to build something spectacular.
Negative comments received are mostly personally hostile against myself. That was predictable. They won't generate much support.
They may not even come out of the woodwork.
The fact is, I wasn't on Council when the decision was made to build a new library to replace the old one.
Or a firehall on a site in our new prestige industrial park.
The decisions were made without me.
But a picture has evolved. It is clear where we need to go from here.
We do have a different concept within Council about design and purpose of a teen centre .
I don't think it should be more athletic facilities. Staff think it should be multi-purpose and make the best possible use of public resources. I don't fault them for that.
But we have made the same mistakes with every facility we ever built by trying to be too many things and not being quite successful with any. More money is spent trying to achieve unrealistic ends.
I think a teen centre it should be close to a hang-out and user friendly More like a coffee shop with room to move about.
Admission should be open with an opportunity for revenue
within
Having to pay a transit fare will put it out of reach of kids who need it most.
In Halifax last year, I attended a workshop about the high cost of policing and typical knee jerk reactions. A panel spoke to the issue from three different angles.
The third was most compelling to me.
The speaker was from Waterloo Region's Social and Family Services..
We learned kids who would end up in jail could be identified by Grade 5. They ones who hadn't mastered basic reading and writing skills.
It struck a chill to my heart. Stephen Harper's campaign promise to build more jails did nothing to quell my conviction, we are not doing right by our kids.
I know from experience, a comment like that does not engender sympathy from the average middle class or well-off parent who has everything to give to their kids.
How many times have we heard it and said it. The kids are our future. It means all the kids.
A teen centre to me is a place to reach kids. The ones who might be heading for trouble as well as those who are not.
To let them know, they do matter. We do care. .
Provide contacts for resources they might need. Make them welcome. Let them have fun while going about the business of safely growing up.
The Mayor says we can't afford that. I'm not sure what he means by "that"
I'm not talking about kids in trouble.
I'm talking about keeping kids out of trouble.
I'm not thinking about a $600,000. gymnasium and healthy physical exercise; the mantra of adults who've forgotten what it's like.
I'm talking about a home away from home, with peers for validation and a friendly adult or two nearby with good listening
skills and useful advice to offer. Especially the lonely kid having trouble mixing in.
"It takes a whole village to raise a child"
My son loved the Nemarket
ReplyDeletecentre when he was in his early teens. The skateboard park, the gym, the lounge and computers were favorites of his. The centre was always busy and well run. The area was perfect as there was little residential around and ample parking. I would like to know just what age group the Aurora centre is based on. And what gender. It can't be everything to everybody. Pre-teens to young teens need somewhere for dances, activities and yes, some kind of gym for exercise. When we were kids, the high schools use to open up for Thursday and Friday night open gym and the school cafeterias would have bands playing or a d.j. It was a cheap and easy solution and we loved it. Hundreds of kids would attend. Why couldn't the town try something like this first before committing to a facility that will cost a ton to build? Much cheaper to hire staff to work those evenings at a school, like the Newmarket dances.