A Powell river resident has invited Mayor Stewart Alsgard and City of Powell River councillors to join her for a walk through the forest trails at Powell River Recreation complex.  

Betty Zaikow wants council to see what will be lost if an athletic track is built there.  “If you voted for this site, you need to see it first,” she wrote in a letter to mayor and council dated June 4.  “ I would still like a pblic meeting as there are too many unanswered questions.”

WHEELCHAIR ACCESSIBLE: Mary Kucharsky enjoys walking forest trails at Powell River Recreation Complex, which will be lost when an athletic track is built at the site.

Zaikow listed a number of questions, including why the field at the former JP Dallos elementary school was not considered: what the costs are for all sites , including JP Dallos and Timberlane: if Fisheries and Oceans Canada as been consulted, because the creek at the recreation complex site has fish; and who will be doing the logging at the recreation site.

“We are priding ourselves as a model community for disabled persons,” wrote Zaikow.  “I often take my 88 year-old mother, a stroke victim who uses a walker, through these beautiful trails.  These trails are accessible from where she lives in Life cycle Housing and are the only wooded wheelchair-accessible trails nearby.”

The forests at the recreation complex are pristine, said Zaikow, without many of the invasive species found in other areas.  “These forests moderate the temperature, bringing cool and shade in the summer and protection and mildness when the weather is inclement.  There are so many wondrous plants and birds to marvel at.  Please do not take this away.  My mother dearly loves this forest.”

Zaikow also asked why the forest is going to be logged when the sustainability charter is becoming a reality and the city is targeting reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  “Why would we cut down this beautiful, carbon-sequestering forest?” she wrote.  “I find it ironic that we are having judges here to view our idyllic parks and green space when we are thinking of cutting down one of the few wheelchair paradises in the heart of the city.”

Bill Reid, director of parks, recreation and culture, told the Peak he was meeting yesterday, June 8, with the consultants on the project, R.F. Binnie and Associates, on the site.  “We’ll be going over preliminary designs and they’ll be looking at the site,” he said.  “I’m hoping they will be identifying the tree line for me and how much we will actually have to log.”

Willingdon Creek flows through the site and riparian area regulations require a 30-metre setback from the tope of the bank, Reid said.  “If we can go 40, that’s even better,” he said. “I want to maximize that as much as possible.”

Powell River Community Forest Ltd. will manage the logging, Reid said, and once the area to be logged is known, it will issue a tender for contractors to bid on.  “I don’t want them to remove any more than they absolutely have to,” he said.