HARRISON – What’s City have for its $5-million purchase of KDN building?

THE PEOPLE at Glacier Media must have a stack of thank you cards for the city of Kamloops.

After all, the City did the former operator of the Kamloops Daily News an enormous favour by taking the building at Seymour and 4th off their hands.
The former Bay department store was no doubt a financial drain on the newspaper, and a building that was no doubt a tough sell.

Presumably, then, there were high fives all around at corporate headquarters when the City of Kamloops showed up with a cheque for about $5 million to buy the site for a performing arts centre that the voters didn’t want.

So now what? There’s no performing arts centre, no new downtown parkade, and a $5-million dollar dent in the taxpayer’s pockets.

Yes the City is reviewing a proposal it refuses to speak pubicly about months after it and a number of others were presented as options for the site, and the mayor now says because it involves land negotiations, it may be months more before the public hears what’s on the table.

In the meantime, the City is getting peanuts in parking revenues, which doesn’t seem to come even close to justifying the $5-million expense.

It’s always easy to second guess decisions from where we sit, but we’re wondering what the rush was to buy this property. Why didn’t the City take out an option to purchase instead, subject to a referendum approval for the performing arts centre?

It wasn’t as if there was a lineup of other potential buyers waiting to snap up the property.

If the options under consideration now don’t pan out, then what? The City will be stuck with a while elephant it neither needs, nor one the taxpayer can afford.
We hope we’re wrong, but this is a story that may, at the end of the day, not have a happy ending.

Listen to Jim Harrison’s editorials weekdays on Radio NL, and to the Jim Harrison Show at 9:08 a.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at jharrison@radionl.com.