An explanation of that last-minute parkade referendum option

On the last day of the parkade debate, there was a final oddity in an epic that has had its share.

An explanation is in order as to the curious revelation at Tuesday’s City council meeting that a referendum in conjunction with the Nov. 19 civic election was, indeed, an option.

Even on that very day, council could have authorized a referendum for the 19^th of next month.

By then, of course, it was pretty much a moot point — there was no appetite in council chambers to continue fighting for a project that could make no headway against the tide of public opinion.

But it did raise the point that a council, and an administration, which had said it would be impossible to hold a referendum by civic-election day had it all wrong.

Indeed, at any point before or since Aug. 30, when council set Oct. 11 as the deadline for receiving counter petition forms, council could have gotten out from under the whole thing by calling for a referendum on Nov. 19.

With no fanfare or explanation, community and corporate affairs director Len Hrycan submitted a report to council Tuesday that simply gave a Nov. 19 referendum as an option in light of the successful counter petition. “The last date for this authorization (of a referendum) from Council is Oct. 18, 2011,” he stated in his report.

Was City Hall keeping River City residents in the dark the whole time?

The explanation I got from City Hall yesterday was that, no, it was simply a lack of due diligence.

The normal process for holding a referendum requires permission from the provincial government and quite a rigmarole that eats up a lot of time.

City staff assumed the rules and timeline are the same in the case of a successful counter petition but they are not. After the counter petition was underway, they figured they’d better check in with Victoria and discovered no ministry approval is required.

At no point, to my knowledge, was there any discussion of this in an open council meeting. Maybe council was informed in camera and didn’t want to muddy the waters.

It’s all of no consequence now except that one wonders why the rules for holding referenda were the subject of assumptions instead of careful homework.

Nevertheless, the parkade has now been removed from the public agenda and we can, thankfully, talk about other things.

Such as, for example, the new CBC radio studio that will open up here next spring. Former TV7 news anchor Rob Polson was in town yesterday gathering ideas for the content of the new Kamloops-based CBC morning radio show tentatively scheduled for launch early next April.

Polson now works for the Mother Corp in Vancouver and is doing some planning for the morning show. Word is the studio will be located in the downtown area — and there will be no remarks here about whether staff will find a place to park.

CBC is searching for a host, a producer, an associate producer and a reporter to work on the show. I, for one, will welcome a program based on our own city instead of one from Kelowna that pays occasional lip service.

Here’s hoping corporate cuts don’t kill the whole plan.