2021-01-14 St Catharines Heritage Committee Meeting Mountain Locks Park

NOTE THIS:
Yesterday's January 14th, 2021 Heritage meeting was NOT listed on the city's website list of meetings, ergo, no meetings list webpage announcement nor link for the public to find to be able to watch the live youtube broadcast. The live broadcast thru youtube did not appear till well into the meeting, and today it is no longer watchable. It has been marked 'no longer available - private', so nobody of the public can ever watch it.
IMHO, both of those are violations of our rights as citizens of St Catharines. I want to know who's responsible.
Guess what though, I managed to record the entire meeting as HD mp4 file. LOL at whomever the responsible was.
On the one hand I agree with Brian Narhi's "Ire".
On the other, I fully understand why some people over the past year prior to yesterday's Heritage meeting got very hot under the collar, including me, and said things the Heritage Committee volunteers didn't deserve. It's because of shenanigans by others, not the Heritage Committee, like no online Jan 14th meeting announcement, no link to watch, delayed live broadcast, and the meeting having since been made private so nobody can watch it.
IMHO, there is fishy stinky things going on somewhere within the city admin process. The Heritage Committee volunteers are just as much victims of these shenanigans by others as the public is.
The historical advocate presenters at yesterday's Heritage meeting all did very well presenting. The Heritage Committee, several councilors, and city staff, all did excellent also. Everybody conducted themselves in a very proper respectful manner.
Don Sawyer related that there are a lot of people of all ages including young people who care a lot about St Catharines' and Canada's history and preserving it, especially the truly special, such as what's left the old Welland Canals.
Much was said about the upcoming 2029 200th Anniversary of the beginning of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Welland Canals, how important they were and still are to the economy and history of St Catharines, Niagara Region, and Canada, and how Mountain Locks Park can play a pivotol part in celebrating that Anniversary history, thus resulting in much economic benefits to be had from doing so.
Colleen Beard proved at least several of the proposed parking spaces will cause lock damage and destruction, and Kimberly Monk presented strongly for a full Archaeological Assessment.
Reference to the Rideau Canal was made as example of what can be done for some part of the old Welland Canals, specifically the 2nd Canal Mountain Locks and further north to Westchester Crescent.
IMHO:
Personally, I think Montreal's Lachine Canal would make a much better reference. After the The St Lawrence Seaway was completed in 1959, the Lachine Canal was abandoned, most of it was buried, and the rest fell into ruin. In 1988 a huge Niagara Region historical advocates' campaign proposal was made to governments and in 1989 came within weeks of achieving National Historic Landscape Designation for the old Welland Canals, and being allocated $ 100 million for "The Welland Canals Development Corridor" from Lake to Lake. But, by the end of 1989 suddenly overnite the bottom literally fell out of that project, it sank, and other much smaller attempts since never came close again. Interestingly, almost ten years later in 1997, 14km of Montreal's Lachine Canal received $ 100 million to restore it to full functionality for use by kayaks and canoes, sided by hiking and biking and green space, and, Historic Site Designation. Since then the entire related area of Montreal was soon revitalized by a further over $ 350 million worth of investments, resulting in over a Billion $ worth of business and recreational economic activity.
(continued in 1st comment below)

[@berettaboi]

Thank you for sharing. The public (and ESPECIALLY heritage archeological assessors that should be involved in this project, and others much like it in the future), should have the most important say in all projects encroaching public use - parks land.

[@HomeMoviesdotCa]

My pleasure, as of right now it's had 30 views, lets hope it inspires more to do more.

[@HomeMoviesdotCa]

(IMHO continued from Description)
Most Heritage Committee members are well intentioned volunteers who have done much good work. However, these committees have no authority, they can only advise, and hence be totally ignored by councilors and staff, which happens far more than not. Plus, all Municipal Heritage Committees in Ontario are volunteers, which means pro-development people can also volunteer, which also happens a lot, as has happened in Grimsby Ontario where several Heritage Committee members there are pro-development and supporting the bulldozing destruction of historic downtown Grimsby to put up 20 story condos. The citizens have been desperately fighting the developers for several years, and looking like they will lose to "due process" manipulations. The tragic fact is Heritage Committees save very little, the majority of what should be saved and preserved gets bulldozed. St Catharines has a long history of doing just that.
As said during yesterday's meeting by staff the parking spaces project was categorized by Council as a 'General Agreement' which ruled out requiring any Historical or Archaeological Assessment. Kimberly Monk pointed out an Archaeological Assessment should have been 'triggered' anyways. Monk said a Provincial Heritage Ministry investigation of this may yet happen.
A recent very simple examination by Colleen Beard with a shovel and GIS overlay has proved that several of the parking spaces would indeed cause destruction of at least part of the lock's south-east wing wall, even without a proper Archaeological Assessment, which could well reveal far worse could happen. Further, both emphasized that the suggested Archaeological Monitoring during construction would be useless.
IMHO, somebody or somebodies within the city system who well know how "due process" works and how to manipulate it had to have known these things and deliberately prevented triggering an Archaeological Assessment by getting the project categorized as a 'General'. By which time it was instantly too late to do anything about that, and, there is nothing that can now compel the city nor plaza owner to do any Archaeological Assessment. Council can choose to do or order one done at any time, but it can also choose not to. It can also choose to ignore the Assessment if one gets done and approve the parking spaces destroying part or even all of the lock 15 and whatever else around it.
Then there's also the possibility of a wee dark 4 a.m. hours of some morning we wake up to find the site and lock has been destroyed by vandals, or 'oops, sorry, I believed we had permission to go ahead'. Both have happened before many times in St Catharines and elsewhere.
Contrary to assurances by staff that nothing will happen to the park without "due process", which allegedly will take months yet to just the next step in that process, that anything can happen including an Archaeological Assessment, or re-design, or even denying the project for new parking spaces,
based on "due process" so far, I for one am not feeling the least bit assured.
IMHO, steve h.