Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson
and Nicole Capewell, NDIT
Local Government Management
Intern presented to Dragon Lake
elementary school students on
Wednesday regarding the proposed
playground designated for
the Southhills area.
City staff have been soliciting
feedback on two new playgrounds
for the community
– a completely redesigned playground
for LeBourdais Park in
a new area of the park and the
proposed Southhills playground.
Feedback has been collected
from town hall meetings, an
online survey, classroom-based
consultation and assembly-based
consultation at Dragon Lake
school.
City Council has completed
their budget deliberations on
these two playgrounds and the
budget for these two playgrounds
has been added to the five-year
capital plan.
The assembly-based consultation
with the students had them
watch a slide-show presentation
on the process of decision-making
and what specifically they
would be considering.
They were then broken down
into small groups of 4 – 5 students
and given 15 choices as to
what equipment they felt was
most important for the Southhills
playground.
Not only did this provide feedback
but it also provided the students
with a hands-on exercise in
decision-making and consensus
planning. Each group was tasked
with selecting their top five choices
for playground equipment and
Simpson explained the value of
feedback but also emphasized
that few groups would select the
same five elements, so the decision
would be made once all the
feedback, from all the sources,
was collected and analysed.
“Once we have all the feedback,
we will actually visit both LeBourdais
Park and the Southhills
site, assess the terrain and make
the decisions as to what is best
suited where,” Simpson said.
We want each of our brand
new playgrounds to have unique
features that will draw the children.
The other two new parks
are at the Arts and Recreation
Centre and West Fraser Timber
Park.”
He added the five-year capital
plan includes refreshing all
the playgrounds within the city
limits. “In general, Quesnel has
four times as many parks, playgrounds,
memorial parks and
green spaces as other communities
of our size,” he said.
“We have 33 as well as 13 maintained
ball diamonds in Quesnel
as compared to 3 – 4 in comparable
communities.”
Simpson said as soon as the
frost is out of the ground, they
will begin both the LeBourdais
Park and the Southhills playground
projects.