Latest / Kvetch & Release / Windsor has splash-pads, a beach, cooling centres and...11 working outdoor drinking fountains

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Windsor has splash-pads, a beach, cooling centres and...11 working outdoor drinking fountains · Kvetch & Release

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  Welcome back to AM eight hundred, CKLW. John Lidkey here. I hope
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  you are all doing well. It is hot out there right now. According
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  to Environment Canada, we are in the midst of a prolonged heat event that
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  is continuing. It's dangerously hot and humid, and these conditions are expected to
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  continue throughout the rest of the week, maybe into the weekend as well.
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  But this doesn't mean that there aren't ways for people to be able to cool
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  off amidst these conditions. The City of Windsor does have many different options available
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  for residents of all different kinds here in the city, whether it be kids
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  and at splash pads, or people who want to go swimming or are vulnerable
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  in the community, as well as just everybody in between. Joining me right
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  now to discuss is Ward nine Counselor Kieran McKenzie. Good afternoon, Kieran,
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  John. Thanks for having me on. It's an important topic to talk about
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  and I think you're doing a great public service here by trying to help people
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  understand how to beat the heat. Thank you very much for what you guys
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  are doing there. Obviously, it's not easy to switch over in these days
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  to know the extreme situations. The city really does come together as a whole.
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  It requires all of our employees at the corporation and I say hour only
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  because you know, I'm a member of this community as well. What are
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  some of the different ways that the city offers residents to be able to beat
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  the heat. Well, you mentioned splash pads, so there's a number of
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  parks across the city that do have splash pads. Those are open eight am
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  to eight pm. So that's one one thing, one measure or one amenity
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  that we have in the community is well Sandpoint Beach is open from and has
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  lifeguards on duty from one pm to seven pm. So again for people to
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  be able to some water features of water amenities, for people to be able
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  to use a number of our public buildings, libraries, the City of Windsor,
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  customer care centers, the Housing and Homelessness hub, the community centers like
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  the Windsor Aquatics Center as for example, are all open as they are the
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  regular hours. We've extended recently permanently the hours of the H four up to
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  up to midnight now so eight am to midnight that facility is available for people
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  to to get into and cool off. The windsor public libraries open. The
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  library branches are open the regular hours as well. City Hall is another place
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  where people can come and cool off. And there's water that is available in
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  all of those public buildings as well through water fountains and even in the even
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  in the restrooms as well. There's potdible water that is available on all of
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  those facilities. So I think that there are a number of options. And
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  then of course you know the parks. There's plenty of tree cover and a
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  lot of the parks that we have, certainly we can do more, and
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  we keep planting trees, but there's the shade available in places to sit in
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  that shade as well benches and whatnot. So there's a there's a number of
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  things that we have and that we've we've that we've had in place for a
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  long time, and other items that we that we've made some accommodations to make
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  available given the heat circumstances that we're dealing with currently. I try to go
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  for a walk every day. Today I was out six am. I probably
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  should have gone out a bit earlier if I wanted to try to avoid that
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  sunrise as it was coming up, but it was still a reasonable seventy six
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  fair and when I was walking out there, I passed by the Aquatic Center
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  and a security guard had walked by, and the door opened up and just
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  a flow of air conditioning hit me right at the perfect moment. And it's
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  such a great reminder of how important those cooling centers are and what role they
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  serve. One thing I wanted to talk to you about here and though that
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  I saw when going through the news today, our friends over at CBC had
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  put out a piece they had done a little bit of research into the number
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  of functional outdoor drinking fountains that exist across the city. At first, they
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  were focusing at the Riverfront Trail, where they say that there's only two outdoor
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  drinking fountains that are currently working. Three others have been put of service over
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  the past number of years. But when you dive into it more broadly,
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  they found that Windsor currently has only eleven functional outdoor drinking fountains across our two
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  hundred and five parks. That that's a not a big number, no,
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  it admittedly isn't. So a couple things there Unfortunately, you know, every
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  municipal infrastructure question comes down to time and money. So and also in the
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  context of these drinking fountains, they frankly are lightning rods to some extent for
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  vandalism. So some of the fountains, it's that people would notice in a
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  certain place, and if it's not functioning, it's not as not as if
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  it's just as simple as turning a tap and and and for that that fountain
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  is sudden will become functional. It Uh, there's there's invariably a significant infrastructure
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  issue typically related to vandalism. Uh. Some sometimes maybe perhaps more in the
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  maintenance side of things, but uh, for the most part, it's it
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  really does become a question of vandalism. So then we we have to ask
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  ourselves in that in that context, what do we what are we going to
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  prioritize in our parks. And you know, and having had that discussion with
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  with the folks in our administration, water fountains come way down the list,
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  way down the list of the things that people want to see us investing in
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  parks. So you know, when we start talking about, well, what
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  are the things that people are asking for? Uh uh, benches, trees,
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  a trail, even barbecues, ironically enough, or interestingly enough, seem
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  to fall higher on the list of requests for amenities to be added into parks
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  ahead of water fountains. I think that there might be a number of reasons
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  for that, and I think the number one and most important reason is I
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  think people typically are carrying some kind of water vessel on their person uh and
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  uh and typically would have water with them, So you know, the question
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  of where are the places where they can refill them? And that's why you
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  know, I'm making the suggestion look for those public buildings and even the public
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  washrooms in the parks as well. The water that comes from the taps uh
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  in the public washrooms, and sometimes the tap isn't set up for a water
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  bottle be felt. I'll acknowledge that. But in the ones where it is
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  that is pottible water, it's the same water that that you uh, that
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  that you would get out of the tap at your home, So it there.
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  There could be more. There could be more water fountains, There's there's
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  no question about it, just like there could be a number of other entities
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  added into any one of our parks. Rough cost estimate to to add fountains
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  that don't currently exist, and there's there's some variability there because it's always affected
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  by available approximate infrastructure. Where's the pipes twenty five thousand dollars and that's just
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  you know that that's that's for one water fountain. And I know people may
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  bock at that, but that's that's that's what that's what these uh, this
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  type of infrastructure costs. And it's not as if the city's not doing its
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  due diligence with respect to looking at where and how we could address the challenge
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  that you just raised. It's where it falls within the list of all of
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  the priorities that that we have to address. What the community wants to see
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  in the parks well, and that's what it truly comes down to. At
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  all times. There's only so much money that can be spent if there isn't
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  an appetite to go and you know, I guess raise taxes to go and
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  do something like this. It's it's the priorities that people dictate to you.
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  And as we've heard from the executive director of the city's Parks and Facilities Department,
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  drinking fountains and as you were saying, these are not things that people
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  come to council about specifically. No, and maybe they increasingly will and I
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  can assure you that if we found that people there's a demand for fountains,
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  and you know, fountains rise to the priority less above benches for example,
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  which I think is right near the very top, then I have no doubt
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  that we would respond. But it and there's an equity issue in all of
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  this as well, John, I acknowledge that and I'm very very aware of
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  that component of it, which is why I think it's important that we've taken
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  some steps to deal with to make our facilities more available to people who have
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  limited options with respect to escaping the heat. And there's another resources and by
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  the way, the Windsor Essex County Health Unit has a whole checklist of different
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  things that people can do to quote, beat the heat as well. If
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  I think if you just googled we chew stay cool, beat the heat,
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  it find that exhaustive list of items. So you're right, we're trying to
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  respond to what's happening in real time. And on the larger questions of the
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  infrastructure that needs to come forward, I think that there's a number of things
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  that we that we could do, contemplating perhaps bringing a council question forward or
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  perhaps through our environment Climate Change Advisory Committee that's only recently been constituted to have
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  a discussion at that level around looking at our parks through that climate change lens
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  and trying to push a discussion forward as to what we would need to and
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  the types of investments that we would want to consider in order to make our
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  parks in public space spaces more responsive to the issues that are emerging as a
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  result of climate change. It's getting hotter and hotter. People are going to
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  need to be able to have a sip of water if it keeps up like
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  this, and I don't think it's going to be changing anytime soon, although
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  I did hear that this is supposed to be the hottest spell that we have
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  here and win zor Essex all summer, So once we can make it through
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  this, we should get back to some more normal temperatures. Kieran, thank
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  you for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you for again John
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  drawing attention to this issue. It's an important discussion, absolutely. Thank you.