With the first hot, sunny summer weekend under their belts, Collingwood’s parks and bylaw staff reflected the days were busy but relatively smooth.
Councillor Mariane McLeod, chair of the corporate and community services standing committee, asked staff for an update on Monday night (June 7) reporting she’d received several updates about crowded parks over the weekend.
Clear, sunny skies and temperatures in the high 20s made the June 5-6 weekend some prime outdoor enjoying weather. This was the second weekend following Ford’s announcement that outdoor amenities like tennis courts, ball diamonds, and skate parks could reopen for public use and people could gather in groups of up to five outdoors with physical distancing.
Dean Collver, director of parks, recreation and culture, said parks staff put in over 200 hours at Sunset Point alone to maintain the park.
“All of our waterfront parks were full as expected and everybody wanted to get as close to the water as possible,” said Collver during the meeting. “I was in the parks a lot this weekend and saw nothing that we didn’t expect.”
He said there were high winds on Friday and Saturday that spread some garbage around the park, but town staff cleaned up the messes quickly.
“I observed people were spacing, they were respectful,” said Collver. “As busy as they were, I call it a good parks weekend.”
Collingwood Fire Chief Ross Parr brought an update from the town’s bylaw department, noting enforcement officers put in about 84 hours of patrol time at Sunset Point.
“It was taking officers two-plus hours to complete one patrol of the park just because of questions and requests from the public,” said Parr.
He noted officers were asked to help with the parking app and answer general questions about the park.
“Some of the issues were just some parking, unauthorized use of the park for overnight camping, barbecuing in areas where it’s not permitted … and some off-leash dogs,” said Parr. “That was all just communicating to the people what the rules were.”
He added the officers noted the parks were cleaned up by 9 p.m. each evening.
Enforcement officers also ventured to Harbourview and Millennium Parks, but didn’t note any issues and didn’t issue any tickets.
“They were busy, but it went really well,” said Parr.
Councillor McLeod said she walked through Sunset Point Park before 8:30 a.m. on Monday and noted it was “spic and span.”
