The man people love to hate

I spent some time with Kim Sigurdson yesterday. He’s the guy people love to hate right now. That is, those who know his name.

Those who don’t just hate some nameless company they think wants to poison our children and ruin our city. He’s the president of Aboriginal Cogeneration Corp., which has a permit to build a gasification plant that will use old railway ties as fuel for creating energy.

Sigurdson is from Winnipeg so he’s not seen much in these parts. He doesn’t come across as somebody who wants to do bad things in Kamloops. Sure, he expects to make some money, but he’s a man with technology he’s positive will do something good about the massive stockpile of creosote-treated ties that are in need of disposal. He’s sure it’s a system that will do it in an environmentally friendly way.

I don’t know if he’s right — I’m still feeling my way through this thing, learning about how it all works. I do wish, though, that somebody could put Kim Sigurdson and his engineers and consultants in a room with Save Kamloops and have a sincere, calm discussion and raise all the issues that are on people’s minds.

That would be a much more useful thing than everybody slinging arrows and mud at each other.