How Advocacy Worked

 How Advocacy Worked!

It's been a nearly 9 month battle with Pickering's Cultural Services but the mural is being removed.

This is not an indictment of the Art or the Artist. 

The City got an idea in their heads and didn't let anyone stop them, even the people they asked for advice.

The back story is available HERE and HERE

In Short - the city asked me for advice and then ignored every one of my recommendations which resulted in an un-skatable park.

After the surface testing event with promised prizes (plural - and awarded 1 single prize of Bones Dragon Wheels- the only wheels I'd found that actually had traction), the skaters who showed and I were frustrated.  We did not feel like we were heard and we were concerned that the people making decisions about the spot knew nothing about skateparks or skateboarding.

I reached out to my Councillor and the City CAO. I laid out the facts and that we were not satisfied with how the event survey was made. I received a reply from the CAO stating she would direct Cultural Services to act on the feedback.  I asked if the online feedback would be taken into account since 90% of online comments were 'remove the mural'.  

She said 'they will'

The city had a self-imposed reopening goal of the May Long Weekend. After the May 2-4, I was contacted for a meeting. I went in pessimistic.

They acted like removing the mural was their idea (who cares) and the way to save the art was to put part of the mural on the West Shore Community Centre and add wraps to the outer walls of the skate spot.

 We also decided to 'not make a big deal' of the mural removal - just get the spot open. I was told the city would start power washing test spots the next week.  I also got some info from the parks dept about some plans for new skateparks & spots. I left quite optimistic.

Nine days after our meeting the power washing had no been started. One day, a portion of the mural was installed on the adjacent West Shore Community Centre.

I reached out to Cultural Service and asked why paper washing hadn't started.  The response - Operations is busy with grass cutting. 

The next week - Operations was still cutting grass. Who would have thought that grass grows in the summer?

Finally they got back to me and said they'd hired someone to remove the mural but they might have to use some chemicals. 

1. Of course the third party is going to use chemicals. Then they can charge you more.

2. I don't care at this point.

The spot was supposed to be closed Monday @ 7am til Tuesday at 4:30pm.

Day 1.

Day 2

Day 2. 4:10pm - saved by the rain.

I have yet to ride the spot (it's still day 2 as I'm writing this) but it's still the cities duty to fix their error. Cultural Services actually tried to pin fixing this on Parks after their colossal cluster fudge.

Update

Come Get Some!

I think it's crazy they didn't wash this, then added the decal here. Meanwhile, they power blasted the sides of everything, making the look like junk. It even exposed some of the tags from the first weekend.

It's no longer slippery.

West Shore's Back, Alright!

First post-mural sesh!

Here is the preserved art.

Other Advocates and I have differing opinions on the text. I think it's clean. BTW, Forrest is a good boy.

That looks 'great'.

The Heavy Handed power washing left the park looking haggard. 

Check out how advocates took their spot back HERE.