Save Matha Park!

  This is St Jean Matha Church on Allard and Dumas in Ville Emard.
   This is the lovely little baseball field and tennis courts behind it.
   On Wednesday at 4 pm the church padlocked the tennis courts. They claimed it was on the advice of their insurers. The land belongs to the church and they do not have a current contract with the South West borough to keep it as a public park.
  The court is frequently used and is home to ATSOM which is the South West tennis association. They currently run a tennis camp there with a lot of little kids learning to play there.
   I was just there on Monday afternoon admiring the beauty of the place, the baseball field is particularly inviting, there are far too few baseball fields in Montreal and this one is quite beautiful.
   Someone at the parish told me that the church bought the land at a high price in 1957 and rented it to the city of Montreal for $1 a year. 

   In January the church asked to renew the lease, a one year deal. The church wanted to renegotiate the terms. Many meetings between the Church and the municipal authorities ensued but no progress was made. The lease ran out and the borough no longer rents the field. The Church's insurance wrote a letter saying that without a lease, the Church was liable for damages from injury. So that's why it's padlocked now. We'll get the story from the South West borough forthwith.