LETTER – Shelve the PAC and unite behind a new bridge to North Shore
Overlanders Bridge. (Image: City file photo)
I can’t remember the city being more divisive than it has become today. This do-nothing “dysfunctional” council has 2plus years to rehabilitate their reputation and help heal the city, maybe championing a big venture which the entire community can get behind could be that elusive project. Now how to find a such a project?
A bridge crossing may indeed be what the doctor ordered, after all who in town doesn’t think we need an additional bridge to the North Shore? It’s been 60 years since the Overlanders bridge was built and since then the population has more than doubled.
Additionally, bridges for the most part come under the Ministry of Transportation jurisdiction, so Victoria would foot most of the bill. The 120,000 population figure bandied about is really only a few elections away, that’s not that long, moreover it’s just a number put forward by former elected officials and government appointees, it’s not written in stone.
Speaking of elections, the upcoming provincial election is poised to be a three way race, with the current right-of-centre split, it’s not unthinkable for the NDP to win both Kamloops seats. If this were the case in what’s likely a NDP shellacking this fall, the governing NDP may be inclined to invest more in Kamloops to keep these two seats for the following election, particularly since at least one of these MLAs would likely gain a cabinet position base upon history.
Sandwiched in-between these two provincial elections would be our next civic election; is it possible that this council could actually work together and curry enough favour with Victoria to make this happen or at least plant the seeds?
Where to place this new crossing, let me be the first to say placing a crossing west of Singh Stree. is stupid, having one all the way out to Crestline is moronic. You don’t put a bridge at the edge of town where there’s very little population, you put it where the population is higher and the river is narrow.
This puts me at odds with City planners but that just makes me feel more assured that I’m right, based upon the City’s past planning decisions. Granted our future prosperity and growth ought to be to the west along the valley all the way out to Cooney Bay, but that’s another story.
Eventually when the new bridge is built it’ll cross in North Kamloops not Brocklehurst and it won’t interfere with McArthur Island, so kiss Singh Street goodbye. Maybe Kenora R0ad at the eastern edge of McArthur Island.
For those who say Kenora is too narrow for the increase in traffic are forgetting that this road runs along the McArthur Island slough, we could expand the road way by infilling the useless eyesore slough thereby expanding the road way without the costs of expropriating any land.
Footings on Rabbit Island could also be easily and inexpensively built leading the bridge to meet up with Summit connector. In addition, this would now provide bridge access to Rabbit Island which would be a great asset as a public park.
This is an example of a project the entire city can get behind, new bridge crossing, access to a new park on Rabbit Island, better traffic flow along Tranquille & Summit Connector and cost effective at the same time. This is the type of project we should be trying to sell Victoria on and using our political assets to our advantage.
Can City Hall please wake up and put the divisive PAC idea away for the time being. Yes, we are going to need a replacement for Sagebrush within the next 10 years but we need time as a city to heal and come together, the PAC at this time will only further polarize the city.
Shelve the PAC for a future council and work on healing is what’s needed now.
MAC GORDON
ArmchairMayor.ca 
It’s not an either / or for a PAC versus a bridge. Perhaps this isn’t a divisive issue, unless you choose to make it that way.
Perhaps read the Build Kamloops information page and the assorted reports. For example:
“Haven’t we voted “no” to a performing arts centre twice already?
Referendums are one way municipalities can receive approval of the electors to take on long-term borrowing, as outlined in the Local Government Act. The public is asked whether or not they support the borrowing to support a project, not whether the project is required.
The need for an arts centre has been long-established in strategic plans dating back to the 2003 Cultural Strategic Plan. This need was reconfirmed through community engagement for the 2019 Recreation Master Plan, where it emerged as the highest priority need in the community.
In 2015, the borrowing to construct a Performing Arts Centre and Parkade was defeated, with 53.7% of voters opposed to the borrowing. In 2020, residents were getting ready to vote on a new proposal to fund the construction of the Kamloops Centre of the Arts when the Province cancelled the referendum due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2020, over 17,500 new residents have moved to Kamloops, the need for an arts centre has grown, and the design has been advanced. On February 7, Council authorized funding to advance the preliminary design through validation and detailed design, which will provide cost certainty and construction-ready drawings. Once that is complete and a financial plan is developed, Council will determine how to seek approval from the electorate.”
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I commented on a post you made a few months back stating “First off, outstanding rebuttal Rob Madsen”, sorry to say this time was a big swing and a miss. First off where are you getting this ridiculous figure that “Since 2020, over 17,500 new residents have moved to Kamloops”, it surely didn’t come from Stats Canada, after all, Kamloops didn’t grow by 17,500 people in the 40 years prior to 2020 so it surely didn’t grow by more than this in the past 4.
The 2019 Recreational Master plan was a draft plan, the official plan wasn’t presented until 2021, besides being another error on your part, have you actually read the report, if so I’m sure you haven’t carefully done so. Both the draft and actual presented plan call for the ice to be removed from Memorial Arena and for the building to be converted into dry floor space sometime between 2027-2034. This is one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever read in my life. It’s an 80 year old building on the most expensive piece of property the city owns with no parking, a very small surrounding population and the city wants to spend millions taking the stands out to convert it to dry space. In the real world, the person who allowed this to be written would be fired. The city isn’t going to rebuild the arena or the neighbouring curling club, rather they are going to sell the lots which intern will pay for much of the investments needed.
The authors also claim more gym space is needed for the north shore and have devoted $3 million in funding for Parkcrest Elementary School gymnasium, but what I don’t understand is why did these same authors demolish the former Boys and Girls Club gymnasium which was only 35 yrs old? Moreover, if more pools are needed then why only a couple years prior did these same administrators push so hard to close down the 3 existing pools on the north shore? In 2017 they were asking for $17 million for a new indoor pool at McArthur Island, 4 years later it’s $50 million, what? And where is the need for an outdoor skating surface, no mention of it, but when $15 million covid dollars falls into their lap they had no problem chiselling off $6 million, so much for the $8 million budgeted for indoor field space. I could go on and on but I’m only allotted so much space.
If you’d had read this report closely and had any previous knowledge of the Recreation and Culture Department under the stewardship of McCorkel then I fail to see how you would think this report is anything more than garbage. This is not an independent report, council and admin set the agenda and hand picked the working group then wrote the report. Their findings were:
99% of respondents believe that recreation is important to their households quality of life & 98% believe that recreation is important to their community
Yet this committee recommends a PAC, which had just lost a referendum with a 53.7% no vote as the most pressing priority that we need, are you kidding me?
Everything council does is divisive and then add a previously defeated proposal by an incredibly disliked council/administration into the mix and you’ve got a pretty explosive concoction. No, I don’t think this proposal stands a snowballs chance in hell of passing a fair referendum and then where will that leave us in 5-10 years when the Sagebrush closes down?
As Shakespeare said “discretion is the better part of valour”, this council is too divisive, too distrusted and too disliked to win this important battle, better to pass it on to the next council, we need time to heal as a city.
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the crossing over the river would need to be near the airport and over the CP tracks west of the landfill right up the TCH merging west of the weight scale. All heavy truck traffic would then be required to use said new connector road eliminating them from roaring through downtown and the north shore. This route would completely circumnavigate the city and make use of land which is of little use right now. I think this project would require fundings from all three level of government.
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So you want to spend $500 million on a truck bridge from the airport to the weigh scales, yea I’m sure that will get a lot of use by the citizenry. What everyday commuter would use this route and how many trucks do think are over on the north shore, where is this battalion of trucks coming from and why don’t I see them? Trucks run east-west along the trans Canada hwy or north-south along the Yellowhead, these imaginary trucks you speak of on the north shore just don’t exist. The costs of building has also dramatically risen, the Patallo Bridge replacement is $1.4 Billion but these are 2018 figures, in todays dollars this would be well over $2 Billion. Connecting to Summit via Rabbit Island would be less expensive and far more practical, two points which should resonate with all of us moving forward.
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There is no land available on the north side of the river and costs for a bridge either here or there is not going to be significantly different. And yes there is heavy truck traffic which would be tremendously beneficial to have it completely removed from entering the north shore and the downtown. Chip trucks and fuel trucks going to the fuel reload area are uberly dangerous and noisy. The city would highly benefit from such scheme.
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Pierre, you’re obviously not from the north shore, if you were then you’d know there are no chip trucks from the north shore, zero. For such a truck to exist it would have to cross the river via the Halston bridge. Logging from Jamieson Creek and the west side of the North Thompson ended for the most part long ago, very few logging trucks as compared to the past. Trucking is a south shore issue which I agree is a problem along Lansdowne St, but it’s not a north shore problem.
Conversely fuel trucking is not an issue for the south shore as these trucks cross the Halston to go to the loading station, the fuel trucks you see in the south shore are actually needed to refuel the gas stations. We had the opportunity to relocated the loading station from next to the airport, which happens to be the best land in the city for residential development, to land less valuable during the recent pipeline work but we blew it. Admin were caught napping here and ought to be held to account, why Trawin and others didn’t feel the need to push Transmountain, a $34 billion federal government entity, to move to a more suitable location makes me question the competence at city hall.
As far as land availability, simply google a map and you’ll immediately notice 12 street, which was recently widened, has room for 4 lanes and runs directly into the eastern slough at McArthur Island. As I stated the slough could be filled in to easily accommodate a 4 lane on/off ramp along with 2 lanes connecting to MacKenzie ave via Kenora Rd with plenty of room to spare.
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I didn’t supply the population information. The “Build Kamloops” website provided the information.
You state:
“Yet this committee recommends a PAC, which had just lost a referendum with a 53.7% no vote as the most pressing priority that we need, are you kidding me?”
Given that the last referendum was 2015, it didn’t “just happen,” and it was based on a different set of facts and circumstances.
Given that 46.3% voted yes, there is significant support for this initiative.
Referendums for the Sandman Centre and TCC barely passed, and I think you’d be hard pressed to find people living here today that wished these facilities were never built.
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The referendum was in November of 2015 but the quote which you restated was from the spring 2019 draft and kept in the later master plan. This was slightly more than 3 years from the referendum until the information was collected, tabulated and then presented, making “just happened” appropriate phrasing.
With regards to the population figures, these are grossly out of line, similar to most numbers put forth by this administration, they have a history of grossly over or under valuing numbers depending upon there position of interest, you really can’t trust this admins numbers. Stats Canada official population figures in 2021 had our population at 97,902, our largest 5 yr increase was 7,600 so I doubt we came anywhere near 17,500 over a 4 year span during an epidemic.(https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/data/statistics/people-population-community/population/municipal_census_pop_1921_2021.pdf)
I agree we will need a PAC shortly as Sagebrush will be closing once a new high school is built in Aberdeen, I wouldn’t be surprised if an announcement was made this election cycle about it’s future. But we also are badly in need of several other big ticket items which have far less opposition. If this unpopular and untrusted council fails to move this unpopular project forward then it’s going to be a big problem moving forward. Better to safe than sorry, pass on the PAC to the next council.
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You put forth common sense ideas to address real issues, Mac. Yours is a refreshing voice to a lot of people in the community.
At present, there seems to be a BLOW DOLLARS Standing Committee (renamed from Build Kamloops).
>Come “h*ll or high water” that PAC is going to be built downtown. The same old regurgitated thought process to have the same old names on a plaque without having a viable Plan B. I’d like to ask a very pointed question: Why are our brothers and sisters across the river are not being held as equal partners in a joint Cultural and Performing Arts Centre? The lions’ share of funding could come from Federal grants. I hope Plan B is not being excluded because reconciliation really isn’t there at all when the chips are laid on the table.
>There’s no Plan B for the loss of the Overlanders Bridge. We’re going to see population increase on the North Shore in the next 10 years. Rabbit Island is a natural stepping stone for the construction of a bridge across the South Thompson.
> The folks who sit on the BLOW DOLLARS standing committee obviously don’t watch the news coverage that we do at our house. More and more seniors and people on fixed income are depending on Food Banks. A person in real estate suggested at a coffee clutch that more than ever, folks are relying on reverse mortgages or deferring taxes to try and make ends meet. Almost $2 million more in wages for a ballooning tax burden just from increased wages at the City in one year. I don’t think you’ll see the members of BLOW DOLLARS waiting for their next meal at Kamloops Food Bank.
> It’s time for more people like Mac to have their voices heard. Councillor BLOW DOLLARS who heads the BLOW DOLLARS standing committee has some tough questions to answer. $7 million spent to approve plans for a PAC that was supposed to have been “shovel-ready” when the referendum to borrow money for the proposed PAC defeated the borrowing a few years ago. Who got this latest $7 million, Councillor BLOW DOLLARS?
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