Kamloops Heritage Society says impacts already being felt ahead of City taking over St. Andrews on the Square

“The staff have been reaching out to the heritage society and have proposed a continuation of the employment of your employee as we do the transition from the heritage society management to the City of Kamloops management,” Christian said. “The management of that facility was felt by the majority of council that the asset itself in a sustainable manner really needed to be looked after by the City of Kamloops.

“We want to make this as smooth a transition as possible. We are committed to all of the commitments that the society has made in terms of leasing or renting this facility to other individuals, and we want to maintain it as part of the heritage inventory that we have in the City of Kamloops.”

Mitchell says the society looked at what the City had offered for the society to maintain operations for a further two years, noting that the employee does not want to be on call 24-hours-a-day for $20 an hour to set up and take down decorations for events when the society isn’t actually operating the building anymore.

“That’s not feasible,” she says. “That just isn’t in the cards, I’m pretty sure… the City and some of its employees have been very good to work with, others have been very unprofessional… right from the very beginning of our association with the City — not this council but others — and other employees as well.”

She adds that bookings at the facility are currently at roughly 90 per cent.

“And to go any further than that, a tiny bit maybe, you still need downtime in the building to do maintenance and repairs and needed work,” Mitchell says. “I don’t see how the City can get it booked any further than what we have done.”

Mitchell says the City has not provided any funding to the society since 2017, adding that they are in a financially stable place to be running the heritage building. She added that the times the society has called on the City for repairs or other work to be done, they did not receive any help.

According to the City’s service agreements, it provided a $10,604 grant to the heritage society to operate St. Andrews on the Square for 2019.

“We haven’t seen it yet, I don’t imagine we will since you’ve cancelled our lease. Our 1998 original lease… stated that the tenant has the right to renew the lease nine times for five-year terms, that’s possibly been changed since then, but that was what the original lease said,” Mitchell says. “And we’ve only been there 21 years.”

Christian said it’s not the City’s intention to change St. Andrews and its operations — meaning weddings and other rentals will still be booked.

“We’re not looking to turn it into a nightclub, we’re not looking to knock it over,” Christian said. “It is an essential part of the heritage inventory of this city.”

He added the City welcomes the opportunity to collaborate and negotiate with the heritage society over what the future of St. Andrews looks like, particularly in regards to its sole employee.

“I appreciate your words but since you sent that letter at the end of August, we immediately had two weddings cancelled because they’re afraid of the perfect-mind system which is notorious for double-booking and they didn’t want to arrive for the wedding in the spring and find out that there was no employee there to greet them and help them and set up for them, and possibly someone else booked in,” Mitchell said. “The last I’ve heard we’ve lost six weddings which accounts for thousands of dollars of revenue to us, and loss of trust by the public in booking with us because everything is up in the air.”

Mitchell added there is a petition that shows support from the public for the society to continue operating St. Andrews.

by Ashley Legassic

Kamloops Heritage Society says impacts already being felt ahead of City taking over St. Andrews on the Square

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