The claims contained in the horticultural division’s release bordered on incredulous.
The more one looks at the arrangement with Wildflower Park the more one realizes that all of the rules and the ad hoc traffic plan around it seems designed for only one purpose, to frustrate the general public from using that public park. The addition of security guards to turn away those who scaled all those hurdles has to be the last straw for a nation weary of the well heeled using political connections to claim control of public assets.
I think both the Minister of Agriculture and the Horticultural Division both need reminding that the public who owns that park pays their salaries, and all rules and regulations must benefit the general public and not just those in ever growing mansions trying to scare the rest of us away.
To compare Wildflower Park to the Botanical Gardens is a feeble attempt to ascribe high status to the park to justify this heavy handed and absurd behavior.
For all of my fifty five years on this Earth I have been to all manner of gatherings in the Botanical Gardens with none of them ever having to write for permission for its use.
We reject all of it and call for the reinstating of this park as well as all others to the list of green spaces free for the public to enjoy.
I am certain that the government has taken note of how incensed this matter has made the entire public, and I am sure that angry response was at the heart of those illegally occupying security guards being withdrawn.
Whether this matter is investigated or not is of little consequence as all the ‘claims’ made were clear to see on a widely shared video,
We the people who own all the parks do not need this one as an appendage to the Botanical Gardens and would prefer our taxes to maintain it as a recreation space for the public to enjoy.
Those who live around it that have a problem with that should move house, as all of them are newcomers to that area and chose to live around a public park.
At the point of this writing the owner of what was once the Chief Justice’s house has planted a pole in the middle of the park on which to mount security cameras. That fresh addition to the park is an illegal occupation of the park and should be removed by lawful authority if the Horticultural Society wants to be taken seriously.
We look forward to having these issues addressed, as well as an evaluation of the traffic arrangement around that park that for some reason sees two parallel roads one way in the same direction, contrary to any free flow of traffic.
Best regards,
Phillip Edward Alexander