Mission sports groups are advocating for more facilities.
The City of Mission’s Parks, Recreation and Culture department held an engagement session on April 27 to discuss its upcoming master plan and the potential activity hub near Centennial Park and Mission Leisure Centre.
The session lasted over two hours with over 20 people in attendance. Mission Sports Council president Dan Williams says most in attendance were representatives of local sports groups who hadn’t been consulted prior to the session.
The engagement was geared toward the activity hub, but Williams says it evolved into a discussion about what the groups were really looking for.
“The consensus by the time it all came down was that we need to think bigger,” Williams said.
He says Mission should be thinking 20 years down the road in terms of planning.
“Stop thinking Mission is small. We have to stop this. The biggest issue I have with what goes on in Mission is we band-aid everything,” Williams said.
Williams hopes for a proper dryland facility in the future – a location that multiple groups can use at the same time.
“There’s no shame in having stuff not absolutely crammed full. The problem with the way we do things now – it’s basically squeezed everybody in on limited space. And it’s bad,” Williams said.
The need for a new Leisure Centre that’s at least two times bigger was also suggested to the city, according to Williams.
“We have growth in basketball, we have growth in ice sports, we have growth in all kinds of stuff that impacts what those rec centres do,” he said. “Everybody’s maxed and facilities are jammed.”
Williams hopes consideration is given to the possibility of third-party sponsorship for a new facility like the Aldergrove Credit Union Community Centre.
A new facility would also take pressure off schools. According to Williams, local groups are using schools because of a lack of space and schools are spending money refinishing floors when they shouldn’t have to.
“We need to have the eye on the prize and the prize is getting kids into sport and making sure it’s safe and having places for people to actually do recreation that works,” Williams said.
While local sports groups have a consensus on the need for space, Williams says problems have emerged with silos as the organizations grow.
“Everybody has their own axe to grind and they ignore all the other stuff,” Williams said.
Williams says there’s often misinformation provided to the city via letters from sports groups that can start a storm of activity.
“That benefits nobody because it’s dealing in false information. But what it does is it occupies a whole bunch of time that could be put to better use,” he said.
The problems for each group aren’t different from others, Williams says.
“Things like the Sports Council are in place to be a go-between so that if you have an issue, we have the time and the resources to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
Feedback from the engagement and results from a recent Parks, Recreation, Arts and Culture survey will be presented to council later in May.
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