Williams Lake has the potential to become a major destination for disc golf, but the city needs to clean up its act first.
This was some of the message shared by Mark Savard of the Cariboo Disc Golf Club at a committee of the whole meeting at city hall on Nov. 26.
Savard spoke at length about the amazing resource the community has built with four disc golf courses in the area, possibly more than virtually any other community.
"It's really exploded in the community in the last three to five years," he said, drawing attention to each of the four courses' attributes and the ongoing work to maintain and upgrade them.
With courses at the rugby fields off of Dog Creek Road, Chimney Lake, Esler Sports Complex, and, what should be the crown jewel, the professionally designed course in Boitanio Park.
"It's something to be really proud of in our city core," he said and talked about the possibility of the club hosting larger events which could draw disc golfers to the community.
"I'm super proud of what we've accomplished in a few years, and we'd love to invite the world to come to Williams Lake for disc golf events."
The club has already hosted a few events, including a touring disc golf event by Doomsday Disc Golf. He and others from the Cariboo Disc Golf Club travelled to Clearwater, B.C. for the national disc golf championships earlier in the year, which drew 400 competitors from across the country, plus companions.
"It's a pretty big thing for a little town," he said.
But unfortunately, Savard said the city has been getting a bad reputation in some ways, with warnings popping up on UDisc, the app which disc golfers use for information on courses all over the world.
“Boitanio is a super awesome park in my mind, there’s just times it’s super unusable,” said Savard, describing seeing everything from drug paraphernalia, human feces, toilet paper, trash and tents which lead to some people not feeling comfortable using the disc golf course.
"If you go there right now, there's turds and toilet paper virtually all over," he said.
Savard said he doesn't have a "silver bullet" solution for the issue, but expressed concerns around the closing of the washrooms for the winter and expressed concern for the unhoused people in the park as well, noting he is not an "anti-tenter."
"You can't just have people wandering through the fairways when you have 500 people playing," he said, and explained how use of the course dropped of massively around Stampede, when the issues in the park worsened.
In the end, Savard asked the city to lead rather than to follow and to work towards a solution.
"I do try to stay out of politics, but I'm surrounded by it," he said, asking the city to find an alternative place for those who are tenting in the park to go.
While he doesn't want to see people displaced just for disc golf, he said the city needs to find ways to address these issues to both help those using the park for shelter and in order to realize the potential of disc golf for Williams Lake.
"It's free, it's outdoors, it's accessible and it's something you can do with family and friends," he said.
City staff and council thanked Savard for his presentation and many spoke on the benefits of the work the club has done and how the issues around drug use and homelessness are related to downloading from the province.
Council explained how washrooms were left open longer on a trial basis at one point, however, vandalism and the mess resulting from people regularly making the facilities filthy with human waste resulted in closing them again. Staff said an estimate for portable toilet rentals in the park came in at $25,000, which the city could not afford.
Coun. Scott Nelson brought up his desire to keep tents out of Boitanio Park, and out of Williams Lake in general.
"You use the shelters or you get out of town," he said. "There's a sense of responsibility that has to be put down on these people."
A previous discussion by council and staff had established council's desire to work this winter on finding a new location or locations to designate for temporary overnight shelters.
A recommendation was then made and passed for staff to bring forward a report to council to provide alternative locations for temporary shelters by early February.
