To say the current version of Penticton’s mayor and council have had a rocky ride is an understatement.
From the Eckhardt Street debacle, to the most recent deer cull kerfuffle, and everything in between, the decisions and intentions of council appear to lack insight, foresight and hindsight.
Council’s recent decision on the educational garden, operated by the Penticton Urban Agriculture Association, at Nanaimo and Ellis streets is, to us, just another example of a poorly thought out decision.
First, council made the decision, to terminate the garden after the current growing season, in camera.
As such, the real reasons for uprooting the garden are not disclosed.
Council has a penchant for meeting in camera — perhaps it’s afraid of the spotlight.
The official reason, the reason made public, for terminating the garden, is that it is unsightly.
This is the first time we have heard the term unsightly applied to a garden, a garden that provides education on gardening and food for the Soupateria kitchen.
How can the growing of food be unsightly?
Perhaps if mayor and council depended on the garden for their own sustenance they would view the garden in a different light — perhaps even as beautiful.
Council also showed a lack of foresight when making the decision as they did not consider what would happen to the space next summer and the summers that follow.
Now they will have to pay city workers to make the site pretty — whatever that means. However that is accomplished, Penticton taxpayers will be on the hook and the Soupateria will have to find another source of fresh vegetables.
This is one decision council must nip in the bud.