Two Hamilton teens are wondering why the city’s plan to build a much needed basketball court in Gage Park is going to take 25 years.
“I don’t know about you, but I will be 41 when this court is supposed to be built,” Norrie King, 16, told councillors at Monday’s Public Works Committee meeting.
“And I’m just speaking from seeing my parents that I will probably be more focused on back pain than playing recreational basketball,” she added, causing councillors to laugh inside council chambers.
King and her friend Julia Neven, also 16, spoke to councillors on Monday asking the city that the court, which was supposed to be built by 2051, be done and ready to play on next year.
25 years to build a basketball court, 250 to build a 1,000km high-speed rail network.
If that basketball court were a parking lot it would have been completed long ago, and probably would be being re-paved right now.
Kind of similar to how sidewalks get closed or torn up for months on end without a pedestrian detour, but a roadway get closed for a day because of construction and reopened the next day as if nothing ever happened.
Hey kiddos welcome to the world of bureaucracy
We have to stop accepting this as a fact of life. It’s only going to change if we force it to. The more people who start asking questions like this and being politically active in their lives, the more things actually will eventually begin to change. Pursue reason and rationality, demand it from our government. It isn’t fun and it feels impossible so we treat it like a joke. Our mockery and nihilism is comfortable but ineffective, our complacency serves no one. It isn’t impossible, we’ve just decided it is because we’ve never really tried to fight for it and we are constantly reminded of the times we failed, any times we succeed are quickly normalized while any influence the people might’ve had on the outcome is minimized and dismissed. We are much more powerful than we are allowed to know.
Very true I will not deny this as a political activist myself but things take time.
Things take time, but there should be limits to how ridiculously sounding something can be. Away from public spaces, some people, especially foreigners, literally jab at Canada as the country that never gets anything done in a reasonable amount of time. Some just straight up say this country never gets anything done.
I bet those kids could easily canvas neighbourhoods, collect money, have it built and be using it by their 18th birthday.
If zoning does not need to be changed or any other governmental BS doesn’t have to be involved sure, but I stand by my welcome to Bureaucracy statement.
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Because they don’t want it. It’s not hard, just accept the obvious.
