Art Gallery & Museum In Polson Park?

A Vernon councilor is floating a plan to put a new museum and art galley in Polson Park.

Brian Quiring says having more people using the park will cut down on the problems there.

“Some people think it’s a great idea. We used to have a school  that park, Fulton School was in there. It’s going to take some study. I’m going to do a little bit of homework on it.”

Quiring says the oval track area could be a possible site.

“In terms of where you would put it, that makes a lot of sense to me because you can’t take access off the Highway (97), and you might not want to take access off 25th (Avenue) for the most part, so you could take access off Highway 6,” Quiring tells Kiss FM.

Mayor Akbal Mund calls it a great idea.

“There is lots of places that have facilities in the park. I think of Queen Elizabeth Park. They have an observatory. You bring more people to the park, it looks busier and there’s less problems.”

Quiring would also like to see a multi use trail running through the park.

He also presented an idea at Friday’s planning session for the city to build affordable housing, and have someone else manage it.

Quiring says it’s hard to get developers to build that type of housing because it doesn’t makes sense financially.

“The city could take on a project, get it up and running, and get someone to manage it, and then they could flip it to a real estate investment trust, or they could keep it as an asset.”

Mayor Akbal Mund calls that a slippery slope.

“Does that become the model for every other community? And not every community is going to be able to do that.”

Mund fears it could lead to more downloading on cities from senior levels of government, which he feels would not be sustainable.

Quiring would like to get the ideas moving before the end of council’s four year term in the fall of 2018.