Artist rendering of a Kamloops Performing Arts Centre created in 2019. (Photo via City of Kamloops)
Work to try and fast track some of the goals in the Kamloops Recreation Master Plan will be getting underway.
Councillor Mike O’Reilly, the chair of the Build Kamloops Select Committee, says the plan is to liaise with four different working groups – Communications, Community User Engagement, Concept Development, and Program Finance.
“In those, we have close to 50 to 70 people that are going to be involved directly on those working groups that are deeply rooted in the community that are then attached to hundreds of thousands of users in their organizations,” O’Reilly said on NL Mornings.
“They’ll canvas their memberships or their associations or whoever they happen to be and feed back into the working group. The working group then comes up with recommendations to the committee.”
Joining O’Reilly on the committee are councillors Dale Bass, Kelly Hall, Margot Middleton, and Katie Neustaeter.
They will be tasked to discuss and prioritize the cost, scope, and timelines of various projects in the Recreation Master Plan. Those projects include a performing-arts centre – identified as the top priority – as well as a new leisure pool on the North Shore, additional ice rinks, and a large curling club facility to accommodate consolidation of both current curling clubs.
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- A look at the projects identified in the Kamloops Recreation Master Plan. (Photo via City of Kamloops)
Committee members will also need to decide how to borrow money to pay for the projects – either through a referendum or a counter petition – as well as prioritizing facilities based on the money or land that might become available.
“That is the balancing act. If we look at the Recreation Master Plan, it is in priority order of when the facilities should be built,” O’Reilly said. “That being said, I think sometimes you need to look at things that are more opportunistic that maybe are third or fourth in line that all of a sudden we’ve got this great opportunity because a piece of land came up but they’ll only put it towards X. That changes the table and that is what these working groups would do.”
“If any one committee thinks they can ever take this on, I think they’re a little lost and that ‘s why we have such involvement.”
Each of the four working groups will have one city councillor as a non-voting member – Bass on communications, Bill Sarai on user engagement, Stephen Karpuk on concept development, and Nancy Bepple on finance.
At the June 27 council meeting, O’Reilly asked Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson if he wanted to be part of the Build Kamloops Select Committee. The mayor declined, saying he felt there was not enough public participation.
“Actually, I told you earlier today that I really feel we need more citizens in the community more involved,” Hamer-Jackson said at the time. “For me, it’s like council feeding to council.”
“You’ve got your five councillors who are going to be feeding to nine councillors at the end of the day … I just don’t agree and I believe we need to have more citizens of the community and professionals involved.”
Chief Administrative Officer, David Trawin told the Select Committee during its Aug. 21 meeting that there were about 25 “external people” who would be part of these working groups.
“These people will include members of the public at large and those with specific talents or from specific user groups and agencies,” Trawin said, noting the format of the committee with working groups allows for more public participation than a single standing committee could.
“You could never operate a standing committee with 25 public and five councillors. It just would not work,” Trawin said.
O’Reilly says the four working groups will be tasked with gathering a lot of feedback.
“So you really get into the weeds at the working group, then further up you get into the weeds in the select committee, and by the time it gets to council as a whole, really a lot of the grunt work has been done,” O’Reilly said.
“It is the best way for us to get the deepest into the community that we can.”
Earlier this year, the City allocated $1 million of its $15.6 million share of the provincial Growing Communities grant towards the Build Kamloops initiative.
“This isn’t a one councillor or two councillor initiative. This is something that all nine elected officials feel extremely strongly about,” O’Reilly said.
“And if we look back at the Tournament Capital Referendum, it was the same structure. We had a committee formed and then working groups understand and it was very successful. We hope to repeat the success of that referendum.”
During the Nov. 2003 Tournament Capital Referendum, 54 per cent of Kamloops residents voted in favour of borrowing $37.6 million to fund facilities at McArthur Island Sports and Events Centre, Norbrock Stadium, and the Tournament Capital Centre including Hillside Stadium.
The provincial government contributed $8 million towards these facilities while the federal government added another $2 million.
There are three more Build Kamloops committee meetings scheduled to take place this year – Sept. 25, Oct. 24 and Nov. 20.
