BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter, from Barrie resident and former councillor Alfred W. J. Dick, is in reference to a story titled 'Navy League president says sports field, parade grounds 'would be good for us',' published June 28.
I noted with interest the comments by Ms. Diane Chislett, president of the Barrie Navy League branch, as to the significance of a parade ground for her cadets.
As a former army cadet in my high school days, I can agree with her that a place to march and drill is important, but I have difficulty seeing how the proposed sports field in the Allandale Station Park forest is the best place to do it.
I have read Barrie Staff Report DEV019-24, which recommended this project, and I note that, in Clause 23, the distance from the proposed sports field to the Southshore building, where the Sea Cadets are to be based, is 450 metres, which, by my calculations, is 1,476 feet (or 492 yards).
That is the rough equivalent of more than four football fields.
In other words, the cadets will have to walk, from the Southshore, more than the length of four football fields just to reach the sports field to do their marching.
And remember that the walk is probably longer because they have to go around the military gardens, not over them.
Which brings me back to the point that I made in my letter to city council, namely that it makes more sense to add a parade ground area to the existing paved parking lot at the Southshore. It would be adjacent to the new Sea Cadet facility, not four football fields away.
And if one agrees with me on that point, then one should also agree that the Sea Cadets' relocation should not be linked to the proposed sports field.
Alfred W. J. Dick
Barrie
