Lessons learned, lessons forgotten apply to parkade
A few lessons from the Aboriginal Cogeneration fiasco could be applied to the parkade-at-the-park but it seems City council learned none of them.
Lesson 1: Talk to the public early, and often.
Last week, council voted to fund geotechnical studies before engaging the public in any sort of public-information process. This would be okay with your average everyday project, but the rules change for controversial ones.
By deciding to spend money now, council is sending a message that the Riverside Park location is its preferred choice. Reassurances that it could all be a moot point if there are soil problems with the site don’t cut it. The flipside of that argument is that geotechnical studies could all be a moot point if the public doesn’t want a parkade there.
The ACC project failed because by the time the proponent started providing good information, opponents had effectively used fear tactics to generate such an emotional backlash that the point of no return had been reached.
By the time council gets around to detailing how nice its parkade will look in front of the park, nobody will believe it’s going to be anything but an ugly eyesore that blocks out the sun and the view.
Already, characterizations of the project as a “Berlin Wall” are coloring the debate.
Lesson 2: Don’t make it personal.
Mayor Peter Milobar gets an F on this lesson for grumpily firing back at Coun. Denis Walsh at Tuesday’s council meeting on the issue of whether or not there are other locations better suited to a parkade than the Heritage House parking lot.
Chastising a fellow council member in a public meeting isn’t included anywhere in Team Building 101.
Not content with that, he followed up yesterday by releasing a roll call on how many times council had discussed other possible parkade locations in a further effort to refute Walsh.
Going to the extent of digging into past minutes to prove a minor point isn’t becoming of the mayor of the city. While Milobar scores a technical point, Walsh is on the side of the greater issue — the fact that administration brought forward a recommendation on only one site for further study and development.
Sensitivity around anything viewed as encroachment on Riverside Park should have been enough to lay out some alternatives, even though there’d be limitations to that due to the confidentiality of land transactions.
Lesson 3: Engage your detractors.
This issue is tailor-made for public outrage, and it will build quickly as the usual suspects — you know who they are, the cheerleading “environmentalists” ready to raise the alarm on any issue — generate petitions, rallies and websites demanding that council cease and desist.
The parkade-at-the-park will become the evil incarnate, the death knell for the community’s “gem,” i.e. Riverside Park.
Judging by a couple of delegations to council, it’s already too late to do anything about this lesson.
Instead, the City is trying to get the downtown business community onside, which is a good idea since a new parkade will be of primary benefit to merchants in the city’s core.
The downside is that it may have the effect of pitting business owners against park users.
There’s no question a new parkade is years overdue. There’s also no question that the Heritage House lot is a poor location due to its adjacency to the park.
Best option now would be for council to backtrack and return to the drawing boards. Second best would be to quickly throw together a public relations strategy — one that can start immediately — and let the geotechnical study proceed.
Alas, the point of return of public opinion may already have been reached.
mrothenburger@kamloopsnews.ca
ArmchairMayor.ca 
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