Willard Kinzie had some advice for city council when invited to speak at its inauguration in 2010.
“Be bold,” advised the man who served as Barrie’s first mayor after it became a city in 1957 and was still leading hikers up mountains well into his 80s.
I’m not sure about councillors, but it appears Marshall Green got the message.
Earlier this summer, the longtime municipal lawyer and community leader was asked by Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall to look into the city’s plans to put a multi-purpose field east of the General John Hayter Southshore Community Centre.
There was fierce opposition from residents to the proposal for a fenced artificial turf field, which would double as a marching ground for the Sea Cadets, on part of what is now a naturalized area. A petition against the plan has gathered more than 7,000 names.
Green spent a few weeks meeting with people on all sides of the issue, from the newly formed Friends of Allandale Station Park to the Sea Cadets to members of the sports community.
The result, a week ago, was an extremely readable 11-page report, not including maps and charts.
Green made seven recommendations, including one calling on the city to develop the area “as a passive park that protects the existing wildlife” and designate it “environmental protection” in the zoning bylaw to prevent future development.
He also recommended a separate parade ground be built on what is now a grass field immediately west of the Hayter Centre parking lot while suggesting the multi-purpose field be built at one of the many existing sports facilities around the city or at the Barrie Community Sports Complex in Midhurst, some of which, he discovered, were being underused or not used at all.
But Green then went much, much further, beyond the initial scope of Nuttall’s request. He also recommended:
- the Barrie Baycats baseball team explore moving to a renovated Queen’s Park
- a new performing arts centre be built on the current home of the Sea Cadets at the foot of Maple Avenue
- the site now identified for a performing arts centre at the old Barrie Central Collegiate grounds become the home of a new soccer stadium for the professional Simcoe County Rovers
That was, I think it is safe to say, a little unexpected.
Green, who recently became a downtown resident, said he was dismayed by what has happened to the heart of the Barrie, especially west of the Five Points.
By taking these steps, he said, the downtown has the “potential to become a huge sports/performing arts magnet,” with something he coined as the “Dynamic Downtown Triangle.”
It may seem a little strange that such recommendations found their way into a report on a small soccer field on the south shore of Kempenfelt Bay, but, as Green himself pointed out, many of the people speaking in favour of the multi-purpose field touted its benefits to the downtown, even though it was not really anywhere near Dunlop Street.
And, truth to be told, the whole process behind Green’s report was a bit loosey-goosey from the start. He wasn’t brought on board through a motion of council. It was simply an exchange of texts and phone calls between two people who, a year earlier, didn’t really know each other.
Nuttall reached out to Green, a prominent member of the city’s Jewish community, after the events of last Oct. 7 in the Middle East. When Green contacted the mayor again to express his concerns about the proposed multi-use field, Nuttall, to his credit, seized the opportunity to ask Green to co-ordinate the responses of the groups opposed to the plan.
That, in turn, led to a request to expand his role, in Green’s words, “from simply co-ordinating those opposed to the (lakeshore sports park), to looking at the needs of the sporting community of our city, the use of our lakeshore, and some other interesting pieces of community development.”
The resulting report isn’t a city document; it’s simply the recommendations of a private citizen acting at the request of the mayor. There is no obligation for council to accept any of the recommendations, although you can be sure the majority of councillors will use those pertaining to the multi-use field to get out of a very unpopular decision.
As for the rest of Green’s recommendations, I think they are excellent. The waterfront at the centre of downtown is a much better location for a performing arts centre — and, again, to credit the mayor, it was his suggestion — and having not one but two sporting venues on the edge of downtown would work in everyone’s favour.
Council would be wise to embrace them, maybe not immediately but as something to work toward over the next decade or two. Perhaps, out of something terribly divisive, city council will find a way to, in Green’s words, “dream together.”
Bold, indeed.
