DEBATE OVER BID TO BAN PUBLIC DRUG USE
Interior Health’s city-based medical health officer weighs in on the issue
A5
BLAZERS HOPE TO SWEEP PORTLAND The hockey team is in the Oregon city with a 2-0 series lead
A26
BOOGIE IS RIGHT AROUND CORNER The big day is April 23 and we have two preview pages
A30, A31
kamloopsthisweek.com | kamloopsthisweek |
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2023 | Volume 36 No. 16
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GET READY FOR A FALL REFERENDUM
Residents may be asked to vote on funding for arts centre, pool, curling club and ice sheets MICHAEL POTESTIO STAFF REPORTER
michael@kamloopsthisweek.com
Kamloops residents may be asked to go to the polls as early as this fall to vote on the municipality borrowing millions of dollars to build a number of infrastructure projects. Last week, city council unanimously approved spending $1 million on plans for the design, costs, timing and location of lacking infrastructure identified in its Build Kamloops initiative, which includes a performing-arts centre, a new leisure pool on the North Shore, additional ice rinks, a large curling club facility to accommodate consolidation of both current curling clubs, a new RCMP detachment and a new civic administration building. Coun. Bill Sarai confirmed to KTW that council may seek holding a lone referendum asking the public to approve a plan to borrow funds for most or all of the projects, depending on what those plans ultimately say the cost will be. He said the price tag could drop depending on available
The debt load for the City of Kamloops is expected to further lighten until 2033 as sewer and water debt is eliminated.
grants and fundraising opportunities. “Say it’s a billion dollars. We’ve got to back up, we can’t take that on, but if it’s in the $250 to $300 million [range] and we get some grants in there, put them on the list, let’s go to referendum,” Sarai said of the projects. Kamloops residents rejected
funding a performing-arts centre in 2015. A second referendum on the project was ultimately scuttled by the arrival of the COVID19 pandemic. In seeking a mass referendum now, Sarai said he hopes the sports community will not feel left out as the vote will not come down to a project it may not see benefitting its interests.
“What we’re saying is we hear all of you,” Sarai said. “We want all the user groups to come out on the referendum and support it because whatever their interest is, it’ll be in that basket that we all want.” He said the infrastructure projects in Build Kamloops are needed for Kamloops to “take the next step” as a city, improve
quality of life, attract more doctors and retain the city’s young population. “Absolutely, in my opinion, it will come down to a referendum,” Sarai said. “It will be a referendum on multiple amenities, new and rebuilt, to address all the shortfalls we have in our recreation master plan.” Sarai said all nine members of council are in agreement on building infrastructure identified in the recreation master plan, the top priority of which is a performing-arts centre. “It’s time to step up or step out and this council wants to step up,” Sarai said. While Sarai said council wants to step up, Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson told KTW he has no information on a fall referendum. “I don’t know much about that, I haven’t heard that,” Hamer-Jackson said of a potential referendum on Build Kamloops initiatives, adding he has not had any discussion about going to a referendum on those initiatives with the council. See CITY OF KAMLOOPS, A10
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