Mavrinac residents do know what they want: neighbour

March 30, 2016 · 0 Comments

Responding to the article, “But what kind of park do residents want?” of The Auroran, March 10, and also as one of the residents who spoke in support of parkland for the Mavrinac land to Council earlier this month, I do want to stress that the residents here at 2B East (of Bayview) are in fact very united in what that we want to see: green-space, parkland and new trees/garden plantings, regardless of individual opinion on the design details.
Catherine Collister spoke eloquently about the importance of children (of all ages) having spaces to play, of “playing hide and seek and red rover” – so did I in my talk to Council. I supported this even as I spoke before her not knowing what she was going to say, I indicated that it would be nice to have more than a garbage can or a hydro box to hide behind – trees, bushes, rocks in a parkland setting would be a great place to play these games.
Kickball, stickball and jump rope, imaginary fort play – all again would be great in a grassy, treed and park-like setting.
We look forward to seeing what Al Downey and his team presents in May.
In the meantime, please rest assured that the residents here do have a strong consensus as to what the neighbourhood wants and believe we need.
This is contrary to Mayor Dawe’s unhelpful comment that we “are already arguing as to what they want over there.”
The fact is, we do indeed know what we want, and we are in complete agreement, regardless of the semantics that may have been used. I think that we all are in agreement that we should focus on what unites us rather than what divides us. We are all residents of Aurora, at the end of the day.
It is important to stress that it will be nice to see something much sooner than the 17 years it took previous Council to do anything in other areas of Aurora (i.e. youth centre, Library Square, etc. that were referred to in your article), and as residents of 2B, as well as most of the supporting Councillors had also indicated quite strongly in recent Council meetings, we all want to do whatever is needed to help move this along a lot more quickly so that our elderly and children of THIS generation can walk to the park on Mavrinac and have somewhere to play!
With my experience sitting on the design committee for the Canada Blooms Festival over the past several years, and my own garden landscape (with its unique rain garden) having been selected to show in this year’s Aurora Garden Tour on July 10, I and many others living in 2B East, would give our time to volunteer as a resident representative on any Park Design Committee that Mr. Downey might establish.

Michele Boyer
Aurora