Finding myself confronted by the in your face fence surrounding the “Friendship” Garden as I parked at Clearbrook Library recalled to mind the question that had posed asking: “Do you believe the city’s $1-million Friendship Garden was a good public investment?”
Where once visitors to the Clearbrook Library where greeted with an open vista of grassy treed space, they now are confronted by a fence that is a blight upon the landscape – ugly to the point of being an eyesore.
The glaring contradiction in calling something a Friendship Garden while building a solid fence with locking gates that prevents people from seeing inside and provides the means to lock people out demonstrates once again the desperate need for a dictionary at City Hall.
Just how can erecting such a fence be construed as friendly behaviour?
I remembered the view of open grassy green space with tall shade trees that had for years welcomed visitors to the library; the gentle slopes, soft grass and shade that invited people to step off the concrete walkway and into the green space.
During spring and summer there were always individuals, families and kids taking advantage of this space to walk, sit on the grass to read, eat lunch or just enjoy sitting there enjoying the sun and breeze with the trees providing shade as needed.
The green space that, lying outside the lower (basement) level entrance, was perfect for the library’s plan to relocate the children’s section to that more spacious and open area of the library. With a pond now just outside the entrance doors that plan is scuttled since the librarians are to responsible to locate the children’s section near the pond.
Abbotsford City Hall and Council had neither the courtesy nor the consideration to consult the library, whose space they usurped, about how this space should be used. Focusing on council’s wants and to bad about the children and their needs – highly Ironic considering the children will be the ones paying for the spending excesses of City Council.
In destroying what was a people friendly green space used by people and in denying the use of the space inside and outside the lower library entrance as a wonderful children’s area city council’s actions were not only NOT a good public investment but were a disservice to citizens, children and the city.