ROTHENBURGER: Door still open a crack to friendly resolution on St. Andrew’s

Those two organizations are among more than two dozen whose service agreements with the City were reviewed (the St. Andrew’s situation is more about the terms of a lease the society has had since 1998). The Heritage Society and Crimestoppers were the only ones not renewed, while the Graffiti Task Force received only a one-year renewal.

We know all about the Heritage Society’s situation but Crimestoppers has also asked council to take a second look and is proposing changes to its arrangement with the City — in effect, a new and different agreement.

That would get around the reconsideration issue. “Reconsideration” is a term used when a council brings a resolution back to the table for fresh debate and possibly a change of mind.

After council’s decision on St. Andrew’s, it was told by staff it couldn’t reconsider because the deadline had passed, which was true.

There are two ways for council to reconsider a decision, one of which I’m very familiar with. That’s a Community Charter provision in which a mayor can rule that a decision made within the past 30 days must be brought back for reconsideration. I once used that power, which is why retired members of council don’t have life-time parking permits, but that’s a story for another day.

The other way of reconsidering is via council’s own procedures bylaw. A councillor who voted on the prevailing side of a decision can move to reconsider, and anyone on council can second the motion. But, again, there’s a time limit.

Neither of those things happened with St. Andrew’s and won’t happen with Crimestoppers, either. Though the Heritage Society tried valiantly to have its objections to the council decision heard, technically it hasn’t presented a new proposal that could be considered.

It’s worth noting that a petition urging council to keep the Heritage Society at St. Andrew’s asks that council “put forward an entirely new motion to direct staff to explore some new form of a working relationship with Kamloops Heritage Society.”

As of Friday, 712 people had signed it online and another couple of thousand on paper.

Yesterday, the society reached out to the City via back channels to discuss creating a brand new agreement, not a reconsideration of the one that didn’t fly.

At least there hasn’t been a flat no, so far. With Crimestoppers possibly getting a second chance it would make sense to extend the courtesy to the Heritage Society. If it reaches a deal with the society, the City would buy back a lot of goodwill and avoid having to operate and maintain the building itself. The bottom line would, of course, be key.

Documents from my FOI application include frequent references to the City having to do major repairs regardless of who runs the building.

But those documents also make it clear there would have to be some new players at the table. The staff and society reps who have been involved thus far are on each other’s blacklists.

One particular email from community and protective services director Byron McCorkell to culture manager Barb Berger illustrates both the communication problem and City staff’s frustration:

“I think we need a full history of our involvement with the ‘society’ as well as the reason for A) us to even be discussing the operation at a Finance committee IE they asked us for help B) why we suggest taking it over IE they indicated they don’t make enough to cover expenses and the building has a lot of them up coming and C) their staffer has indicated they are tired, they are thinking about retiring and there is no fall back plan…and finally D) the board has and continues to have a revolving door of members none of them looking to become fundraisers…. So, in the interest of preserving this now cherished piece of Kamloops Heritage we have suggested it come into our inventory (like the Courthouse and the Cigar Factory and the Wilson House so that we can budget for it and protect it, not without the caring consideration of the Society but in partnership with them….however the current leadership has chosen to say no way, not that way and we are taking our marbles and going home…”

Those comments came within a flurry of emails in early October after local media followed up on an Armchair Mayor column and the public was sending dozens of complaints to mayor and council about the decision.

In another email, McCorkell writes, “if there is a communication breakdown it can be found there, as our notes are clear.”

In answer to a question from Coun. Sadie Hunter, he writes, “It is clear this group simply wanted the city to pay them directly and in past discussion indicate they were looking upwards of 70K a year to keep it going.” (That might be news to the current board.)

At one point, Coun. Dieter Dudy and Coun. Mike O’Reilly worried about suspected leaks of confidential information to the media.

Not all the public feedback about the decision was bad — former councillor Shirley Culver, who served briefly on the heritage society board years ago, wrote the mayor supporting the move. This is likely what communications manager Wendy Heshka was referring to when she wrote to Berger and McCorkell asking how to get a letter that was written to the mayor into the public realm as “it furthers the City’s claim/ position that we have been working with the board for many years on this plan.”

With Mayor Ken Christian out of the city, O’Reilly as deputy mayor quickly moved to bring himself up to speed on the file with material supplied by staff and pushed back against the society.

A few days later, after doing some media rounds, O’Reilly thanked the staff for their help. “It has felt like a real team effort.”

Nowhere in the documents released between Aug. 15 and Oct. 15, the time period referenced in my FOI application, is there any indication of a willingness to meet the society part way. Rather, it was all hands to the ramparts to defend the City’s position.

“Whatever has been said publicly has not been founded in fact,” McCorkell wrote, and “If there is a communication breakdown it can be found there, as our notes are clear.”

He writes an email disputing my initial column, including a reference to a test booking attempted by the society on the City’s booking platform that took two weeks to work its way through the system.

McCorkell explains that “the city itself is in the midst of transitioning its software and working through some operational issues that will in fact streamline this in the future once the technology is fully implemented.”

Even Christian muses about “false information.”

But maybe, just maybe, the defences will be lowered enough to allow for some respectful, open-minded discussion.

McCorkell himself sums up a good part of the issue in an Oct. 10 email to O’Reilly: “…..So in the end we have a building that needs repairs……do we pay and do or do we pay them to do it.”

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He writes five commentaries a week for CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: Door still open a crack to friendly resolution on St. Andrew’s

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