If the resolve of Friends of Bonnerworth Park was somehow ever in doubt, what transpired Wednesday night (December 4) at St. Peter Catholic Secondary School in Peterborough provided clear evidence that the grassroots resident group isn’t folding up its tent quite yet.

On a night when very few were traversing icy snow-packed city streets, some 60 people braved the elements to receive an update on where things are at and where things are going in the group’s now 10-month-old fight against the City of Peterborough’s $4.1-million redevelopment of Bonnerworth Park to install a 14-court pickleball complex, an expanded skate park, a bike pump track, and a parking lot.

From the outside looking in, it would seem Friends of Bonnerworth Park has lost the battle. Work on the now-closed-to-the-public park has already begun, with the park resembling a moonscape until work resumes in the spring, and the group has abandoned an attempt to apply for a stop-work injunction against the city.

However, as the attendees at Wednesday night’s meeting heard from Friends of Bonnerworth Park leads John Gerelus and Richard Scott, the group is moving forward and considering its next steps.

“There is a way to legally do something — that’s (still) an option,” said Gerelus in a post-meeting interview with kawarthaNOW. “Another option is we become an official stakeholder so we can have input on what goes into the park.”

“There are court rulings and studies being done worldwide about the long-lasting detrimental effects of pickleball noise, especially (the effect on) seniors and young people. In the next few months, we can present to (city) council, saying ‘We’ve done your due diligence. We now know, where you’re putting it, isn’t going to work.”

Asked if Friends of Bonnerworth Park would go as far as suing the city, citing loss of quality of life for park-neighbouring residents, Gerelus says they have been advised that such action couldn’t be taken until after the park’s redevelopment is done.

“There are types of action you can take, but that’s only after the fact. Then you do your studies. That costs money and it’s very expensive. But a preemptive suit is unlikely to succeed.”

Gerelus notes a GoFundMe appeal for donations to go toward the group’s legal costs has been disabled but, before it was, just more than $43,000 had been donated. He adds all legal bills incurred to date have been paid, and what’s left has been deposited in a bank account.

Wednesday night’s meeting followed two recent major setbacks for the group.

First, on November 7, it learned that its Kitchener-based lawyer had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was closing his practice. Then it was informed that a hearing for a notice of an application for a stop-work injunction, filed with the Superior Court of Justice, would not be heard November 25 as they were originally told. Instead, pending civil cases wouldn’t be heard until the spring.

As a result of those developments, Friends of Bonnerworth Park applied for an abandonment of its application for an injunction and disabled the GoFundMe appeal.

Group spokesperson Richard Scott, who also addressed the meeting, echoed Gerelus’s thoughts on what could transpire over next few months with work at the park halted for the winter.

“We have four or five months before they start up the work again, so who knows what could happen,” Scott said. “We’re going to be exploring what the avenues are.”

“If there aren’t realistic legal options, there all kinds of other options. Those 14 (pickleball) courts are only going to be used for tournaments. Surely they can convert some of them for dual use so the community can use some of the courts for tennis. The community can have, and should have, a very strong voice in the details of this thing and how it operates.”

“We haven’t exhausted all of the options. That’s why we feel it’s worth our time, and our lawyer feels it’s worth his time, to investigate what, if any, options might be available, and then we’ll have a definitive answer.”

Fresh on the minds of both Gerelus, Scott, and most of those at the meeting was an exchange that took place Monday night (December 2) between Peterborough mayor Jeff Leal and city solicitor David Potts during city council’s general committee meeting.

At the end of the meeting, when chair Andrew Beamer asked if there was any other business, Mayor Leal raised his hand. He said the city had been accused of placing “roadblocks” before Friends of Bonnerworth Park in the legal process for obtaining a hearing on an application for a stop-work injunction and asked Potts if this were true.

Potts, who said he was “grateful for the question,” replied that city staff had made preparations for the hearing a top priority before discovering the November 25th hearing date was, he claimed, “a fake hearing date.”

“There was never any engagement with the Superior Court office by the applicant to secure a hearing date,” Potts said. “It was made up.”

On December 3, Friends of Bonnerworth Park issued a statement vehemently refuting that allegation, noting the November 25th date was clearly noted on the notice of application for an injunction issued by the Superior Court of Justice and served on the city.

The statement went to say the group was informed by its lawyer that, “due to a clerical or administrative reason,” the hearing was not scheduled for that date, leaving the group “as surprised as anyone.”

“Friends of Bonnerworth Park interpret Mr. Potts’ comments as suggesting we deliberately sought to mislead the city,” the group’s statement read. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Potts might have done us and council the courtesy of ascertaining the facts from our lawyer before making unfounded statements.”

After earlier characterizing the exchange between the mayor and Potts as “clearly prearranged” and “a sickening manipulation of the truth,” Scott told kawarthaNOW that the city “is obviously still listening to us (Friends of Bonnerworth Park) … we’re still under their skin and I think somewhere, in whatever little nugget of conscience they still have, something must be nagging at them.”

“Why would they react that way? It’s because we’re not going away, and people know we are fighting for what is fair and right.”

For his part, Gerelus termed the exchange “scripted bravado.”

“It’s another attempt to misdirect blame and disparage our efforts to save the park. Everything we’ve done has been honest and above board. To insinuate this (court date) was deceitful or made up is offensive. It is another failed attempt to garner support for an ill-conceived, tax-funded project meant to service a private 400-member club (of pickleball players).”

Both Scott and Gerelus, who have each put aside much personal time to help co-lead Friends of Bonnerworth Park, said the turnout for the meeting on a foul-weather night should tell anyone everything they need to know about the group’s resolve.

Further, Scott said if the city wants to challenge the group’s accumulated documentation, whether that be in relation to noise, traffic, or environmental impacts of the park’s redevelopment, well, bring it on.

“I’ll stack any of our documents and their integrity against anything that the city has put out,” he said. “We have been thorough. We have a lot of technical expertise on our team. The city says the public doesn’t understand technical standards. We all have experience. We’ve been around for awhile.”

“It’s very insulting when the city say things like that, when they’re the ones who don’t know what they’re doing. If they did, they would have had a successful outcome and we wouldn’t be meeting here tonight.”

Of note, city councillors Joy Lachica and Keith Riel attended the meeting but did not speak to group. Both, along with councillor Alex Bierk who sent his regrets, have consistently voted against various council motions that moved the park’s redevelopment forward.

“They have been steadfast in their support — they have really stuck their necks out,” assessed Scott, adding “They’ve risked a lot as well.”

With the next municipal election set for the fall of 2026, Gerelus said the 8,000-plus people who signed a petition to keep Bonnerworth Park as a greenspace have long memories.

“People are going to remember,” said Scott.

“This is not just a Bonnerworth issue. Why are these people elected into office and what motivates them? They are not serving the larger population and, in fact, are punishing a certain part of the community. As a result, expect there’ll be an impact on the 2026 election.”

Christmas is meant to be spent with family and friends, so imagine having to spend it in a hospital far from home and those you love.

That’s exactly what happened in 2018 to Nick Beamish, a teacher and coach at St. Peter Catholic Secondary School in Peterborough, when he experienced a cardiac crisis. After learning that Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) did not have the facilities to diagnosis and treat his condition, he had to spend Christmas in a hospital in Kingston, hours away from home.

Since then, Beamish has been an advocate for the PRHC Foundation’s $60-million Campaign for PRHC, which is helping to ensure the hospital has the lifesaving technology that he needed to receive care close to home.

“The whole family was uprooted at a time during Christmas when everyone’s supposed to be together because I was stuck in Kingston in the ICU,” Beamish recalls. “For me to be able to get the care that I needed at home would have made all the difference in the world.”

Given that he was in his early 30s and had an active lifestyle, Beamish was not initially concerned when he began experiencing regular chest discomfort and heart palpitations in the weeks leading up to the holidays in 2018, instead attributing it to exhaustion of the end of the school term.

When the symptoms continued to get worse, he went to the emergency room at PRHC, was hooked up to an EKG monitor, and learned there were issues with the electrical signals in his heart.

For PRHC’s healthcare professionals to assess the cause of Beamish’s abnormal heart rhythm and make a diagnosis, they needed to conduct an electrophysiology study. Unfortunately, the hospital did not have the facilities to conduct the procedure, and Beamish was rushed to Kingston General Hospital, where he spent Christmas and part of the new year in the ICU awaiting the procedure.

“My now wife was there with me, but she was staying in a hotel far from home the entire time that I was in the hospital,” he says. “My dad did the same. The amount of stress and loneliness and challenge that it posed for me and for my wife and family was a lot.”

Despite how difficult the experience was, Beamish says he’s grateful the emergency happened before he became a father of two young boys.

“I couldn’t imagine going through all of this with my boys at home, trying to navigate being in the hospital all the way in Kingston, or having to help them understand what’s going on with me while I’m so far away,” he says.

Fortunately for patients like Beamish and their families, with the support of donors, the PRHC Foundation’s largest-ever fundraising campaign is nearing its $60 million goal to reimagine healthcare at the regional hospital that serves a population of up to 600,000 people in Peterborough and surrounding areas.

“When you’re in Toronto, you can get care in 10 minutes because there are so many hospitals, but when you’re in Peterborough, there’s only one place to go,” says PRHC Foundation President and CEO Lesley Heighway.

“If I need emergency cardiac care, it has to be there, and it has to be ready. We have to have world class care available here, because the alternative is there will be times when that trip down the 401 in the back of an ambulance is just too long.”

According to Heighway, $11 million of the funds raised through the Campaign for PRHC will go towards “keeping hearts at home” through cardiac care advancements at the hospital.

Some of the early funds raised have already been invested into the upgrade of PRHC’s two state-of-the-art cardiac catheterization lab suites. The advances in technology have already improved the quality of diagnostic imaging that enables healthcare professionals to perform minimally invasive procedures there.

Now the community is being asked to support the next phase of cardiac advancements: the introduction of a new service to the region with the creation of an electrophysiology lab.

The technology will support patients who have abnormal heart rhythms, arrhythmia, or other problems that occur in the heart’s electrical system. For patients like Beamish, it means they will be able to receive the lifesaving care they need close to home.

“By bringing a third cardiac lab, we’ll be able to treat people that right now have to drive to Toronto or Kingston for electrical conditions of the heart,” says Heighway. “We’re really excited about the level of innovation and the lifesaving services that are coming from this campaign. We should not underestimate the impact of having care close to home.”

Having a cardiac electrophysiology lab at PRHC will improve care and reduce travel and costs for patients, but it will also attract top healthcare professionals to work at the hospital.

“Young doctors, nurses and staff want to be surrounded by state-of-the art technology and they want to be surrounded by innovation,” Heighway points out. “Having that technology will help the hospital to recruit the physicians we want to be working in our community.”

As for Beamish, he continues to be regularly monitored by PRHC’s cardiology department, since heart rhythm issues rarely happen in isolation.

“I was worried that it would come back and that I’d end up back in the hospital in Kingston or in Toronto because the services weren’t available at home,” he says. “If I ever experience those symptoms again, I’ll have to go right to the hospital and treat it with the severity that it needs to be treated with.”

As he approaches the six-year anniversary of his stressful health emergency, Beamish has a simple message for existing and new donors to the Campaign for PRHC.

“Our hospital is an invaluable part of our community, and we don’t realize how much we need the hospital and how important it is until we have to rely on it,” he says. “If we can raise the money to help bring that service closer to home, it’s going to help people and families stay together during such a challenging time in their lives.”

For more information on the Campaign for PRHC or to make a donation, visit prhcfoundation.ca. To volunteer as a campaign ambassador, email foundationeventsonline@prhc.on.ca or call 705-876-5000.

This branded editorial was created in partnership with the Peterborough Regional Health Centre Foundation. If your organization or business is interested in a branded editorial, contact us.

With heavy hearts, GreenUP has made the difficult decision to close our downtown retail space known to many as the GreenUP Store.

GreenUP invites you to join us in December for holiday shopping featuring local makers. As always, the proceeds from your purchases will support our charitable work.

A longtime staple in the heart of Peterborough, the GreenUP Store at 378 Aylmer Street North has engaged hundreds of local businesses and supplied countless products and resources to support greener living. Our Refillery has diverted thousands of plastic bottles from landfill and encouraged lifestyle changes in its patrons.

GreenUP has made this decision as it is paramount that our financial health supports GreenUP’s mission to inspire and empower environmentally healthy and sustainable action in our community.

As a registered non-profit charity, GreenUP relies on funding from multiple sources. Operating as a social enterprise, our store was established to both share local sustainable products with our community and to serve as a revenue stream to support our environmental work.

Since the pandemic, while our programs remain in high demand, retail has been struggling across the board. The GreenUP Store is no exception. As our beloved store has not been able to contribute to our operating revenue, it is in the best interest of the organization to shift our focus to our many other programs which empower climate action.

GreenUP has been in a challenging fiscal year and shopping at the GreenUP Store this Christmas will directly support our charitable work. We would love to see you over the next couple of weeks to refill your favourite products and stuff those stockings with sustainable goods.

To prepare for the holiday season, GreenUP Store program coordinator and avid environmentalist Eileen Kimmett has curated a list of affordable and locally made stocking stuffers.

Locally made gifts for under $10

• Ornaments from RDR Creations and Brianna Gosselin
• Beeswax tealights / votives from This Old Flame
• Vegetable / flower seeds from Urban Tomato Lady
• Handmade gift bags and stockings from Marie Olver
• Lip balm and handmade soap from Swift Acres
• Christmas cards from Brianna Gosselin, Anita Clifford, Jackson Creek, and Ella Mollie
• Handmade key chains from Spruce Moose

Locally made gifts for under $20

• Shampoo bar and lip tints from Birch Babe
• Knitted mittens, hats, and pocket animals from RDR Creations
• Honey from Swift Acres and a maple syrup tasting trio from Red Mill
• Beeswax candles from This Old Flame
• Coffee from Birds & Beans and Old Rail Coffee
• Reusable facial rounds from Cheeks Ahoy

Your support this holiday season is deeply appreciated and the GreenUP Store will maintain regular business hours until December 21st. Clearance sales will be held January 7 to 17, with additional details to be posted on our social media and in our e-newsletter.

GreenUP gift certificates will continue to be honoured at GreenUP Ecology Park. However, if you have one you would like to use in our store, we encourage you visit us soon for your holiday shopping.

GreenUP’s dedicated staff of passionate professionals remain committed to community-centred solutions, engaging residents and stakeholders to address the climate crisis through delivering quality nature-based education and programs.

Our home energy efficiency services will expand in the new year, Green Economy Peterborough is offering new membership tracks, and we continue to grow our operation of the native plant and tree nursery in GreenUP Ecology Park in 2025.

The GreenUP team is already drawing up plans for new schoolyard green infrastructure projects, hosting youth-led climate action events, we will continue to inspire active transportation, and so much more.

As always, we are eternally grateful to our incredible community for the many years of support. If you would like to help us to continue offering climate solutions at this critical time, please donate to GreenUP at greenup.on.ca/donate-now. All donations are tax deductible.