The City of Montreal transferred an extra $1.2 million of funding to the Borough of Verdun for parks and sports installations last month. The money comes from the 2012 Programme triennal d’immobilisations (PTI) and must be spent by December 31.
Verdun resident Ninon Gauthier hopes the new funding will be used to renovate existing parks so that another Beatty Park fiasco will be avoided.
“Remember that Mr Trudel wanted to close Beatty Park and give a big contract to Catcan to do a new park,” said Gauthier. “I hope Mme Marotte [the Mayor of Verdun] won’t use money from the new budget for La Tortue and Catcan. We didn’t need another park in our district. Verdun East needs money for their parks.”
In January 2011, the Borough of LaSalle held a consultation in which they announced that Beatty Park, a fenced-in park in front of a building on the south side of LaSalle Boulevard would be torn down and replaced with an open water park on the waterfront about 120 metres to the west. Although the equipment in Beatty Park was very old at the time, the fencing offered security so the space was well-used by young children from neighbourhood daycares.
After attending the consultation, Gauthier helped initiate a petition against the plans. More than 500 people signed.
Councillors responded by agreeing to renovate Beatty Park ,but they still insisted on building the new park, which is now known as Park Quai de la Tortue.
Gauthier and other residents thought the decision was a scheme to line Catcan coffers rather than serving residents with a needed facility. When they found out that the Borough applied for funding from Montreal’s Pram Famille program, they wrote to the City of Montreal to complain that the program wasn’t designed to support new construction. The funds were revoked.
After that “Mr Trudel decided to take $576,000 from the surplus acculumé de l’arrondissement to achieve his project with Catcan,” said Gauthier.
There are now two parks on the waterfront. Gauthier is frustrated because Beatty Park is less impressive than it might have been.
“I work hard for my money and I really don’t appreciate hearing that a lot of people in Montreal stole my money,” said Gauthier. “They need to do a good clean up of the administration. We pay 30% more than the real costs for these projects. So before giving out more of our money, please do a good clean up, Mr Applebaum, and catch the thieves in your administration. We’re not sure what’s going on in Verdun for so many years regarding all those contracts. So Mr Applebaum stop giving our money to people we can’t trust anymore. Your problem is the contracts. Be responsible with our money and wait. Parks can wait another year.”
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