The first thing I would like to make clear is that I, like many others, have no problem with a waterslide being built in Penticton — we just don’t want it on public green space.
However, if there was ever an argument against building this, one needs to look no further than what has recently transpired at the Sylvan Lake waterslides. After 34 years, it is closing its doors.
In an article supplied to me from the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, park manager Charlie Everest said, “keeping it up to health and safety standards after this season was not fiscally feasible. We could kind of tell it’s been coming — our pre-season inspection and maintenance is taking more and more and more each year.”
Mounting upkeep and other overhead costs have had to be covered by steadily increasing entry fees — now at $35 for anyone over four feet tall, and $25 for anyone under four feet tall. A family of six with teenagers would cost $210 to get in the park. Who will pay this kind of money for a few hours of fun?
Major repairs to this park could only be done in the summer months when revenue is generated. Eighty five seasonal jobs are now gone because of this closure. This is why I am so perplexed as to why mayor and council think we can do any better. Maybe they live in fantasy land, or maybe they were all born on that small coral south sea island — No Brains Atoll. This project is doomed to fail. Period.
Mark Billesberger, Penticton