Campbell Mt. as a Municipal Park!

This afternoon I attended a meeting hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, featuring our minister of tourism - Pat Bell, local MLA - Bill Barisoff, MP Okanagan-Coquihalla - Dan Albas, Mayor Dan Ashton and a host of other politicos.

There I proposed the idea of converting Campbell Mt. into a regional / municipal park. Those I spoke with thought that it was a great idea.

Two events were evening highlights for me; the first was an interview that I conducted with Shaw Cable, stating the positive effects of Campbell Mt. as a municipal / regional park - which went very well; apparently it'll air on local television, which I'll never see as I don't subscribe to cable.

The second, and perhaps more important event was a long talk I had with MLA Bill Barisoff. Bill is one of those 'real people' - despite his association with the political realm :-)

Bill suggests that those interested in seeing a new municipal / regional park win the hearts and minds of Penticton council and the appropriate members of the RDOS.

This leads me to ask those of you reading this to join me in banding together to wage a campaign of common sense with our local politicians. If enough of us join forces, we will be able to convince council / RDOS to take the concept into serious consideration. We need to find a champion within council who is willing to run with this excellent idea and see it to fruition.

Imagine Campbell Mt. as a municipal park; no more garbage dumping, legitimization of our existing trail networks on the mountain, a stop to any ideas that certain realtors might have of building homes on the mountain, thus destroying our trails and access, a decent parking lot and washrooms onsite, along with a halt to the endless erosion that is being caused by dirt-bikes, quads and 4X4's conducting vertical hill-climbs on the mountain.

All excellent outcomes!

Contact me via this forum, email (andrewdrouin 'at' gmail 'dot' com) or by phone at 250.486.2443 to join the movement!

Andrew D.

Enjoyed an excellent meeting with Mitch Moroziuk (Director of Operations) and Jacob Belobaba (City Planning Technologist) this morning. Both parties appear to like the idea of seeing Campbell Mt. gain protection as a park of some form - though neither of them have the power and authority to see it through without participation from several levels of government.

As such, its off to the RDOS and Provincial Government I go...

This looks to be a long-term plan - think 10 to 15 years out - but well worth perusing based on the many positive aspects of the project as noted above.

Which leads me to you; I'll be creating and circulating a petition in the near future, asking for signatories. I strongly encourage all of you reading this to read and sign on to this widely beneficial project. In addition, I'd ask that you tell everyone that you know about the prospect of seeing Campbell Mt. converted to a regional protected area / park. this is one of those rare projects that really doesn't have a 'down-side' to it!

Look for petitions in all of your local sporting and sport-related shops in the very near future; I'll keep this discussion forum updated as to the status of the project.

Andrew

Good work!

Make sure the petition is correctly formatted and worded properly. Make sure you know who it is directed to and what the purpose is. Run it by the people it is directed to to make sure it is legally binding or whatever. Government is soooo good at ignoring petitions. A form letter where people can take, sign their name, and send in themselves might be a good idea too....

I LOVE the idea of Campbell Mountain as a park. What a way to increase healthy living of a community. And make a community more liveable. And have it as a tourist attraction. What's not to like?? Oh wait, then our development-loving council won't be able to build subdivisions up there.....