It will be a coordinated effort between multiple agencies to ensure the safest way possible to open up city recreation facilities and parks.
That was the message from Delta Mayor George Harvie and Metro Vancouver board chair Sav Dhaliwal who provided updates on recreation during the Delta’s seventh virtual town hall on Thursday morning.
Harvie was asked when recreation facilities would open in Delta.
“We have to wait for direction from the provincial government,” said Harvie. “I know our MLA, Ravi Khalon is working with Victoria on this right now. I know Chair Dhaliwal has some information too. We are waiting for that. On Monday I made a motion that was approved requesting that staff report back on getting ahead of the opening, so what they are doing is ask them to work with our union and occupational health a safety committee in doing the modifications to all of our facilities because the days of open counters are gone, so we want to have these all prepared and ready to open up as soon as possible, but they have to be safe both for our employees and our customers.”
Dhaliwal said Metro is very anxious to get all facilities open, but the biggest challenge for all of us is the physical distancing, which will have to continue for the foreseeable future.
“Our staff is working with provincial health ministry staff to make sure that we have proper guidelines and some of the precautions that we have to take,” he said. “I recognize that some facilities are opening, like golf courses and we had to change extensively how we could open them safely…the challenge is for the staff that is creating an environment is safe. Social distancing will not go away when we open up these facilities. It will be a gradual opening.”
Harvie said all parks and recreation departments at all the municipalities are also working together to share information on best practices so it is a coordinated effort.
Dhaliwal also addressed the closure of Boundary Park parking lot and Delta’s Metro Vancouver parks.
“This is something we had worries from day one. The Easter long weekend was a time period where we expected crowds together and we took advice from Mayor Harvie to ensure safety for people,” Dhaliwal said. “Yes we recognize how important it is for people to go into the parks and enjoy the open air and exercise, but it has to be done effectively and safely and that wasn’t working well, so we made temporary arrangements to close them during the long weekend. It was difficult to enforce. Our bylaw enforcement officer could not enforce fines. When we tried to do that, people were rejecting that and putting our staff in jeopardy, so we had to close.
“Now we opened them up partially and it has been reasonably working well. Parking lots have been monitored and closed so we don’t have people coming from all over the region and this will continue for a while until we recognize that, yes, the spread of coronavirus is under control. We are taking direction from the provincial health officer and staff accordingly and try to keep the parks open.”
