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Teachers set to walk off the job for three days starting Monday
VOL.46 ISSUE 18
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FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012
entertainment Bands to battle for Rock en The Peach lineup spot
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gs ssen senior enio iorr bo boys ys b bask basketball ketball sports orts Mustangs team excited for provincials
BUGGING OUT — Will Howard keeps both eyes on the progress of Gertrude the salmon pink bird-eating spider during The Reptile Guy show at Cherry Lane shopping centre that continues through the weekend. Fear Factor Challenges will take place at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.
Mark Brett/Western News
CITY RELEASES DETAILS ON LAND SALE Simone Blais
Western News Staff
Penticton could be issuing a call for buyers as early as the end of March to sell city-owned Eckhardt Avenue lands through a public RFP process, as one way of resolving the failed hockey dorm project. In an exclusive interview with the Western News Thursday, Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton, chief administrative of¿cer Annette Antoniak and development services director Anthony Haddad gave a step-by-step accounting of what transpired leading up to the sale of the city lands on Eckhardt Avenue, the construction process, how the city found out things were going sideways and what was next for the site. Although land sales typically fall under incamera subject matter, they said the city was re-
leasing the information after hearing many from the community ask for details. “We also feel we have a responsibility to disclose the information. It’s a bit of a dif¿cult one because some of the legalities around it, but we feel it’s important to provide our residents with the facts,” Antoniak said. “That’s really important. These are the facts. There’s lots of rumours and innuendo Àying around out there. These are the facts,” Ashton said, adding an open letter to residents and chronology of events will be on the city’s website. The mayor said that the sequence of events began in 2009, when the Okanagan Hockey School approached the city about securing the option to buy the Eckhardt land and building a dormitory project to round out its offerings to students and families. “That hockey school is an integral part of op-
erations of not only the events centre, but Memorial Arena and McLaren Arena. I know it’s an entity that other municipalities would love to have,” Ashton said. “There has to be a distinction between the hockey school and their entity and what another gentleman put in as Okanagan Elite Hockey Association, which is totally separate.” The school had one year to come up with plans and ¿nancing to buy the land, but Ashton said the option expired without any progress, and the school mentioned that it felt a development project was outside its area of expertise. A realtor then approached the mayor in September of 2011, representing a developer interested in buying the land. Ashton and former councillor Mike Pearce met with Loren Reagan and Mike Elphicke at a restaurant, and the pair expressed interest in the property and asked if it could be for sale. Ashton said they said it could
be for a fair market value. “They expressed that they wanted to be the purveyors of the hockey dormitory. They would like to build this, a dormitory for Okanagan Hockey School,” Ashton said. The next time Ashton met with Reagan was at the boardroom of the Ramada, and he brought Antoniak and Haddad as well. The principals had been there for two days meeting with architects, engineers and construction contractors to draw up plans, schematics and timelines. The intention was to buy the land and begin construction immediately so the project could open by September 2012. “It was the who’s-who of contractors in the room,” Ashton recalled, noting that it gave city of¿cials con¿dence the process would move ahead.
See SALE - Page 5