The new Cridge Park Rescue Group has more on its mind than preserving greenspace. They also want to keep our democratic values alive where people are heard and consulted about decisions impacting their lives. The group was formed in response to the City's proposal to develop Cridge Park, which includes the Lawn Bowling Greens. Their major focus is to save Cridge Park from the bulldozer and to preserve it for perpetuity. However, these activists also have an underlying grievance: the City's lack of proper consultation with them and the public. The people most affected by these City Hall decisions feel that they have been kept in the dark and denied an active role in the process. Even with recent victories and national recognition, the future of Cridge Park and the Bowling Greens may lie in reinventing that democratic process. And it begs the question: “What does it take to protect a park?”

As a spokesperson for the Cridge Park Rescue Group, Stuart Stark seems more than qualified. Stark has spent most of his life restoring historical landmarks around BC and the Yukon. He wants the City to stop all plans to build on Cridge Park. But he is equally concerned that the City is abandoning a core value: consultation. In Stark's presentation to City Council on August 21, he stated that City Council has been promoting the development of Cridge Park "behind closed doors" and that the process" is not and has not been open or transparent."

Kris Constable, VP of the Lawn Bowling Club, is pleased to announce that the Club has won a national award for having a record increase in new members for any club in Canada. At the same meeting, he said that for months the Club was never granted any of the meetings they requested of the City. On August 21, the speaker for the Church of Our Lord was Sylvia Van Kirk, the Rector's Warden and Heritage Coordinator. She explained that for decades the City has given the Church full use of the park for recreational activities and it would be a "travesty to violate the purposes for which the city itself designated this land so many years ago." Councillor Dean Fortin defends the City's actions. He feels that they have gone through the proper consultation process with the public and all the parties involved. Fortin confirms that City Council has renewed the lawn bowlers' lease for another year. He says they are now looking at an alternate site for the Art Gallery, possibly the Apex site. As for Cridge Park, Fortin believes that: "There is an intrinsic value in this public park. It adds to our downtown environment."

According to Kate Friars, the Director of Parks for the City, Colliers International ( Real Estate Co.) is doing a Lands Use Analysis of the area. Constable wants the company to exclude Cridge Park as a development option. In the lawn bowlers' impressive report, The Green, they offer to beautify Cridge Park into an active recreational green space, pending security of tenure.

Pam Madoff, city councillor, says that it is "indefensible to be developing on parkland and we should be preserving, expanding and maintaining the greenspaces that we have." A positive development is that the "Apex" site is now being considered for the Art Gallery and Children's Museum. In her view, the "only option" is to leave Cridge Park and the Bowling Greens intact, though enhanced. She adds that building there is inconceivable, considering the shaky substrate of landfill and water. Madoff also wants to bring a motion to Council to protect our greenspaces through rezoning them to reflect their actual uses.

Cridge Park's future is still uncertain. The activist group wants to save and protect their little piece of heaven. The next step for Constable is to protect Cridge Park through a more secure designation, perhaps obtaining Heritage Site status. This is echoed by Van Kirk. But it all could depend on a more fully public consultation process. Stuart Stark says it best: "City Council has to consult with people to the same standard as any private company."

The websites of the Cridge Park Rescue Group and the Lawn Bowling Club are:www.cridgeparkrescue.com and www.cplawnbowling.org.