County Councilor donates salary to fund Cluny playground

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

ision 1 County Councilor Jason Wilson donated the capital necessary to replace the playground at the Cluny Hall site.

The former playground was torn down in 2018 as it did not meet current safety standards and was deemed unsafe for kids to play on.

Wilson said county council had been discussing replacing the playground, but funding for the project was always in question and council wanted to see more community funding from organizations in Cluny.

“I think the big thing is that we’re trying to limit expenses on the county side – on the municipal side, because we’re facing lower revenues,” said Wilson. “I think the project was put back a number of years … and after thinking about it, I didn’t think that was fair.”

He added he did not want to see kids not having access to a playground space due to a lack of funding and from mass unemployment in the both the county and province, which is out of their control.

“[Meanwhile], we had provincial politicians and federal politicians continuing to collect a full salary while people were hurting on the ground,” he said. “I disagree with that, so I decided to put myself in other people’s shoes and I donated my full salary for that year to cover the build of the playground.”

The new playground consists of a climbing wall, a slide, and a swing set. Residents were consulted via survey to determine which equipment they wanted to see added to the new playground, that was within the budget set by Wilson’s salary.

Wilson said though the playground is not particularly large, he hopes kids will appreciate and use the space.

He had also originally wished to donate the playground anonymously; a plan which was foiled by fellow councilor Tom Ikert, who during a council meeting, openly commented about Wilson’s donation.

Wilson added he does see merit in having it known that he made the donation, as it also serves as a gesture to reinforce his beliefs about how a politician should be – though that reasoning was not his original intent when he made the donation.

“I have an idea of what politicians should be, and if I’m going to preach how they should be, I have to be willing to do what I say they should do,” he said. “When [Tom] announced it to everybody, it gave me a platform to say that politicians should do better. If it went anonymously like I had hoped, people would just have kept wondering who did it.”

Wilson explained he maintains a strong stance about how elected officials should be, adding he wanted to lead by example instead of simply preaching his ideas without action.

“I can’t continue to collect paychecks when my residents are facing some of the hardest financial times they’ve ever faced,” he said.