Musings Winter 2022 (continued from page 10)
Parks managers will increasingly become much more collaborative; working with social services staff, land planners, neighbourhood associations, social agencies, arts & culture entities, sports and event planners to try to deliver on high quality experiences in public parks. Get your politicians to lead a community walk at least once a year in their wards or selected neighbourhoods!
environmental problem through green infrastructure (ie. stream erosion through combination approaches of hard and soft solutions) - Ensure you are aware of upcoming developments at the District Plan, Secondary Plan and Plan of Subdivision levels; add your valuable input to planners and engineers!
Examples of Multi-Disciplinary Action:
Automation and Technology and Public Safety
- Work with the Downtown BIA to assure prosperity; clean, attractive downtowns, free of litter and quality plantings, healthy trees and appropriate benches and receptacles. Set standards and share resources! Work with local nurseries to promote native species and locally-sourced materials. - Continue school-related environmental projects during non-school months; help out teachers and school staff to not let children’s projects lapse during their holidays. - Work with neighbourhood associations on mutually-beneficial projects to enhance their pride of place. - Apply for infrastructure grants (federal and provincial) to address specific concerns in your community. Also, there are sponsored grants such as Scotts Canada through CiB. - Enlist a multi-tiered approach to move the disadvantaged toward a brighter future (social workers, law enforcement, church organizations, food banks etc.) rather than simply shunt homeless people from place to place - Teach young children how to grow plants and food through municipal growing plots and special events. - Work with the engineers, ecologists, environmental planners, landscape architects and any other emergent new human resources to attack an
We may see increased use of infra-red “people counters” as an important element of monitoring how and when parks are used; including non- typical hours where vandalism and miscreant behaviours are common. Perhaps drone technology can be used for forecast areas of flooding, or susceptibility to wind damage and for plant health. We have self-watering planters, what about self-watering for newly planted trees? Will there be robot mowers to cut grass or will there be grass species that eventually have genetic engineering to the point where grass will no longer need to be cut? Can robots prepare infields for ball diamonds? How about operation of floral beds? Will there be a way to signal when parks equipment has malfunctioned? Will our heat zones change so significantly that we will be driven to plant choices more akin to Florida in 20 years? Will parks staff be GPS monitored like some snow-plow trucks in the course of their duties? Will productivity data ignore the qualitative worth and skill of parks managers; that is their skills at ensuring a park looks great rather than just having timesheet and productivity data being properly filled out? This scope of work is well beyond only an “operational realm”.
Of course, using PPS and “Placemaking” principles can help ensure that public places and spaces that
…/12
Page 11
Ontario Parks Association
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online