CORNWALL – The parks and landscaping supervisor for the City of Cornwall says the municipality’s 44 neighbourhood parks are treated equally when it comes to grass cutting, maintenance, playground inspections and upkeep.
That response from Scott Porter after a city councillor asserted on Twitter that the east end is given short shrift when it comes to upkeep.
“Aime Leblanc Park closed due to safety concerns? This would never happen in Riverdale! East end neglected again,” Coun. Mark MacDonald tweeted Wednesday morning.
MacDonald lives on the same street as the park.
Porter said park programming at Aime Leblanc on Prince Arthur Street was temporarily moved as “a precautionary measure” after poison parsnip was found in the park and along the riverbank by the bike path in the green space.
The yellow flowered plant can cause serious sunlight-reacted skin burns to children or adults who come in contact with the plant’s sap.
Parks staff removed the poison parsnip in the park when it was discovered. A contractor was brought it to cut the area along the fence line and along the bike path. The park play unit is inspected weekly along with the grass being cut once a week – the same as the other parks in the city – Porter explained.
He was emphatic that “no area of the city is treated differently.”
On top of grass cutting, inspections and maintenance, the parks department recently ordered and received a children’s spring toy specifically for Aime Leblanc Park, which will be installed within the next month to replace a damaged unit, Porter added.