Skip to content

Parksville parsimonious with community centre

Re: ‘Fate of PCC up in the air’ ( PQB News , Feb. 28)
15834593_web1_PQN-Letters

Re: ‘Fate of PCC up in the air’ (PQB News, Feb. 28)

Parksville city council is ready to save taxpayers’ money by removing its annual subsidy for our community centre located at the city hall complex.

This cut will effectively close the centre.

Parksville without a community centre… hello? Wake up folks; too much penny-pinching will compromise our cultural and economic heart.

Operating public facilities is what city governments do. For example, the city of Burnaby spends more than $227 per person a year on its community and cultural centres. Parksville currently spends a parsimonious $20 per person a year on its subsidy for our “community and conference centre.”

And the centre’s three full-time and three part-time staffers are hardly argument for wage spending excess, even at $23 per hour union pay rates.

Meanwhile, in nearby Qualicum Beach, the town’s taxpayers subsidize its Civic Centre by two-thirds.

And in Nanaimo, the Harbour City spends — you guessed it — two of every three dollars annually on its beautiful new downtown conference centre.

Parksville city council would do well to revisit its decision to cut off its right foot and while they’re at it, save some of those vacant city lots recently occupied by blue tents — currently offered for sale by the city — for much needed overflow parking.

If council has its way, future Parksville events will move to nearby Qualicum Beach or Nanaimo.

Local Lions club and Legion members surely had a better future in mind when they built the place.

Patrick Proudlock

Parksville