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BUMPS RAISE QUERIES
HONOURING CLARENCE JULES
Yes, bridge will still have joints
Former TIB chief laid to rest this week
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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK THURSDAY
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SEPTEMBER 17, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 112
City sets Sept. 28 for public meeting on Ajax
CHILDREN OF THE CORN MAZE
The Sundman family — Michel (left), dad Eric, Emma and Gabriel — managed to survive the corn maze at Tranquille Farm Fresh. The popular maze is now open and will again feature spooky night shifts from Oct. 29 to Oct. 31. For more information on the maze and other activites at Tranquille, go online to tranquillefarmfresh. com.
ANDREA KLASSEN
STAFF REPORTER
andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
Residents with questions about the proposed Ajax copper and gold mine will have four hours to share their thoughts with the City of Kamloops at a town hall meeting later this month. The city is planning an independent review of the mine’s application for environmental review, which will cover the mine’s effects on the environment and public health, among other concerns, and is looking for public feedback on what areas its consultant, SLR Consulting, should tackle. The meeting will run from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 28, at the Coast Kamloops Hotel and Convention Centre, 1250 Rogers Way in Aberdeen. It will begin with a presentation from city staff on what questions the city already plans to ask SLR, followed by an open-mic session in which residents will have three minutes each to make suggestions. The city will also take 500-word written submissions on its website, kamloops.ca, from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2. Mayor Peter Milobar said he hopes the evening will attract residents besides “the usual cast of characters” who have been involved in the discussion on the mine during the past five years. “My hope is we hear from the general public that we haven’t heard from already,” he said. “I think there are a lot of champions on the no and the yes side we’ve heard from for the last four years.” The city plans to host more public meetings once the mine’s application is accepted by the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Association and made public — a process expected to take between 30 and 60 days. KGHM Ajax submitted its application on Friday, Sept. 11.
ALLEN DOUGLAS/KTW
Council likes business case for PAC ANDREA KLASSEN
STAFF REPORTER
andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
Kamloops city councillors are hoping the latest report on the proposed performingarts centre will please the public as much as it has them. At its Tuesday meeting, council got a look at the business case for the centre, which consultant MHPM said will have an economic impact of $11 million a year for the city if it is built. The new report, which includes more details about the cost and look of the building in the lead-up to a Nov. 7 referendum, received a warm response
from most of council. The report can be read in full online at kamloopsthisweek.com. “I feel that this is going to be something, hopefully, that the community can embrace and help define us,” said Coun. Dieter Dudy. The city is asking residents to decide whether to borrow up to $49 million for the centre’s construction at the former Kamloops Daily News site downtown at Seymour Street and Fourth Avenue. The remainder of the funding would come from federal gaming and gastax funds, revenue from downtown parking kiosks and one per cent tax increases in 2016 and 2017, which would bring in $950,000 the first year and
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$1.9 million per year thereafter. The city also hopes to secure $10 million in grants and revenue from a naming-rights deal, and has a $5 million donation from local philanthropists Ron and Rae Fawcett, contingent on the referendum succeeding. A new floor plan for the centre doesn’t change the basics of the project — a 1,200seat main-stage theatre and a 350-seat black-box theatre, along with artists’ studio space and dressing rooms — but firms up how much square footage the city would commit to the spaces, said recreation, social development and culture manager Barb Berger. See ECONOMIC, A5
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