Saga of Kamloops Daily News property wasn’t as screwed up as it seems

The saga of the Kamloops Daily News building isn’t City Hall’s finest hour. One might get the impression, in fact, that MBA programs won’t be including it in their curriculums as a case study in how to meld politics, business and public engagement into a result that works for all.

However, it wasn’t as big a screw-up as it seems on the surface. True, City Hall came up with craps, but it was at least as much a matter of bad luck and circumstances as anything else.

There are now things that need to be done as a result of it all, and I’ll get to that in a moment. First, though, let’s do a bit of review.

When I recently editorialized that a decision on the building was taking way too long and maybe it was just time to tear it down and put up a parking lot, it was impatience talking. I’d hoped Peter Milobar and his council and staff would come up with something good.

Corporate administrative officer David Trawin hinted at the reasons for the unusually long gestation period when he talked with media on Friday, and now it’s confirmed with the release of development and engineering services director Marvin Kwiatkowski’s report, which is included in the agenda for Tuesday’s council meeting.

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The deal that the City was looking at was complicated, involving a multi-parcel land swap. That suggests there was a lot of detail and a lot of negotiating. Each and every nuance and source of disagreement can take weeks to iron out as consultants and architects and engineers and lawyers return to the drawing table, meetings are scheduled, and compromises sought.

And, of course, it all had to be kept under wraps, since land deals are one of the things that must be dealt with in camera until they’re tied up in a tight ribbon.

Unfortunately, as Trawin said, it didn’t work. On April 4, council passed an in-camera motion to proceed with demolition. Milobar, Ken Christian, Dieter Dudy, Tina Lange, Arjun Singh and Pat Wallace were in favour of demolition, while Donovan Cavers and Denis Walsh were against it.

It’s highly unlikely anybody will change their minds on Tuesday.

If we go back to the origins of this abortive venture, remember that the property unexpectedly came on the market after Glacier Media suddenly pulled the plug on the community’s one and only daily newspaper.

That presented an opportunity to pick up the land and building at a reasonable price of $4.8 million using reserve funds. It seemed like a buy-now, figure-out-what-to-do-with-it-later situation, but not really.

Two things were known at the time — the downtown needs more parking, and the location fit perfectly with the concept of centralizing arts and culture facilities downtown.

As the proposal for a performing arts centre was developed and presented, a couple of mistakes were made. One was that right from the get-go, the price was off-putting. When even the mayor noted at the official unveiling of the plan that $91 million was “a lot of money,“ it wasn’t a good sign.

The other important piece was that, as Milobar put it at the time, there was no “Plan B.”  Except for parking, of course.

Thanks largely to Coun. Denis Walsh, the majority of council decided to go looking for that Plan B after the fact, holding off on demolition.

Thus, the temporary reprieve and request for ideas. It was worth a try.

In the interests of transparency, and to satisfy a public that’s been trying to figure out what the hell has been going on, an explanation should be offered as to why none of the nine proposals was considered acceptable.

And, why the City focused on only one of them, if such is the case.

And what were the various proposals about? Not the details, of course. Nothing about who made them, or even costing. But, at least, the very basics — for example, a pared-down performing arts centre. A commercial-retail-condo development. A community centre. A city hall. Whatever they were, let people know.

The report going to council on Tuesday doesn’t explain any of that. Instead, it confirms that demolition is expected to be completed and a parking lot in place by September or October, at an expected cost of about $1.1 million.

So that, at least, is an all-but-done deal.