Mayor and Council Approve Park Construction

If not totally predictable, then let it be semi-historic, Mayor and Council formally approved the construction of the proposed park at the "rez". I spent the evening in council chambers biding my time by live-tweeting on council agenda that contained issues like asphalt tendering, illegal dumping, Sea Dogs winning, soap-box derbies, etc while waiting for our agenda item to come up. It was forgone that the vote would pass; they had unanimously accepted the notion of it during the session before but needed to exercise diligence by getting some hard numbers on maintenance costs.

To clarify what this all means allow me to elaborate. The City of Saint John owns the land on which the future park shall lay. In order to get the necessary permits from the province to work around the waterway that is the Little River, the owner had to give the go-ahead to do so. Soooo, with the whack of a gavel tonight, the City gave its consent to build, build, build. The vote was unanimous. I got several winks, thumbs up and nods from the councilors and Mayor as the vote passed. Whoo hoo!

So, Irving Oil has committed their resources to make a run at this project and the City has committed to maintaining it after the ribbon is cut. LRRA's role will be to ensure its continued viability as a community space through programming events and activities there. That is the plan and we all hope it works out.

I want to thank those at Leisure Services who helped pull this together. They got the information that council needed in order to cast a vote in less than two weeks. Great job folks.

Once construction begins, hopefully this summer, LRRA will start a Facebook page to keep folks up to date on this great project. I will keep you all posted.

Tonight, however, I will sip my celebratory single malt then sleep well. I feel like the world just got a tiny bit better today.

LRRA Finds a Really Good Friend

Some big news to tell you. Really the biggest news we've ever had with the exception of announcing our existance back in '07. And we are so happy to share it with you. Since our inception we have been seeking a major partner for the project. Rather than scraping for funding from many sources we were hoping that someone would see this project and say, "we've got it covered." That seems a lot to ask but one can always dream, right? Well, That dream has come true for us. Last night, in council chambers, LRRA formally announced its new friend and partner in this project, Irving Oil. Wow.

The folks at Irving Oil have pledged to work towards making this park a reality, and really, we can't think of a better organization to have on our side. They have a great history of working with the community, they are here in the community, they value the sense of community and they do things right. We are so pleased.

From the moment we showed them the project they loved it. They realized its potential as a wonderful asset to the community just as much as everyone else who has seen it has. And with this committment, the park is one step closer to reality.

We'll keep you all posted on news as it comes in, but today we are happy. Today is a good news day.