Locked out: Buckhorn Rec Society attempting to refurbish tennis courts as user-agreement with SD 57 stalls

Five years has been long enough for Rose Verkaik.

That’s how long she and the rest of the Buckhorn Rec Society have waited to establish a user agreement with School District 57 in relation to the tennis courts located in that community.

According to a Facebook post by Verkaik last month, the courts were being maintained by the recreation society until last year and have been locked out from accessing them.

In an interview with MyPGNow.com, Verkaik who is the recreation society’s vice president stated the facility has been deemed unsafe by the school board.

“We had removed trees, we had cleaned it up and for the last five years they have been telling us that we are going to get a user agreement on these tennis courts.”

“Five years we have been sitting here, five years we have been frustrated and it’s not right. The school used to use them for sports days and the school did use them at one time. At one time, my community used to flood them, and there used to be an ice rink there,”

Since the recreation society has been locked out from accessing the tennis courts, the facilities have not been maintained by anyone and now look unsightly.

Verkaik mentioned the condition of the courts continued to worsen over the summer months.

“Over the summer grass had started to grow in there again and we can’t get in there to get anything cleaned out.”

“I want them opened so that the school, my grandchildren, and my community, everybody can start utilizing these tennis courts that our tax dollars paid for.”

Verkaik noted the organization received grant money from the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George. However, the initial clean-up of the tennis courts was undertaken by a series of volunteers with no tax dollars or anything.

“They had locked it previously (School District 57). So, it was locked for about three years and when we saw that the locks were off we all went in there and it was really bad then.”

“Five years ago, the School District had no clue that this was even on their land. They said it had belonged to the Regional District and it didn’t. I said can we maybe buy it as a community and get it back? The school district said they couldn’t sign over any more land over due to the Aboriginal Act. Then we said Ok, we will come up with a user agreement but they never did.”

Verkaik stated she later received a report from SD 57 stating the chainlink fence is upside down – a claim she believes has since been disproven.

“If you look around the school, the entire fence around the school is done the exact same way. The fencing companies have told me that this is the proper way to do a fence the way that it currently is. There was a small hole in the fence but has since been cleaned up thanks to one of the community members who own a company who went out and fixed it.”

“I’ve lived out here for 27 years and we’ve never had an issue with those tennis courts or anybody getting hurt.”

Verkaik and a number of volunteers are tempted to cut the lock off and start refurbishing the courts again. She mentioned more grant money from the Regional District of Fraser-Fort George has been secured but cannot be utilized until a user agreement is reached.

In response, School District 57 Secretary-Treasurer Darlene Patterson issued the following statement to MyPGNow.com on the current situation:

The District has been having conversations with Ms. Verkaik over the past few years regarding the tennis courts.

In communication with Rose Verkaik in May 2021 I included the following information.

While the tennis courts may have been paid for by someone other than SD57 they are on school district property and our concern is that they have not been appropriately maintained and may in fact be more of a liability than an asset at this point. The safety assessment which was done several years ago indicated a significant number of health and safety deficiencies and the locks were put on at that time.

Other similar community courts were put on our facilities during the 70’s – many of these are in similar disrepair as they were also not maintained by the individual or group who had them installed and the school district is not provided with funding to maintain such structures. Similar to the Buckhorn court, the asphalt is in terrible condition at these facilities.

I did speak to Ms. Verkaik recently and let her know that a license to occupy between the School District and the Buckhorn Recreation Committee is still the plan however due to the many demands on staff time outside of our control, most recently childcare, it will be when time permits.