Build Kamloops AAP deadline approaching, residents on both sides

The city moved to the AAP format with the approval of the province, giving residents a minimum of 30 days to submit their opposition to the project. In Kamloops’ case, residents have a window of 45 days — from July 30 to Sept. 13.

“At the end of the day, we’re putting this out and we will see what the response comes back as and really the voter speaks and we’ll go from there,” said Build Kamloops Chair, Mike O’Reilly. “But we do know we haven’t had any new facilities built, no new pools in 30 years. The last new sheet of ice we’ve had in Kamloops was 1992 when Riverside Coliseum opened up.”

If 10 per cent of the voting public return voter forms, the city must either take the borrowing question to referendum or cancel the plan.

“This is an unreasonable use of the AA process. If you have the loss of a water treatment plant or something like, that’s of an urgent nature and we can see where that might be implemented,” said Davies.

Kamloops is not the first municipality to use this process for recreational facilities.

“The City of Langley did one for sheets of ice, and the City of Vernon did one for a cultural center,” said O’Reilly. “This is being used for recreation facilities across the province, and we thought this was the best way to bring it forward to the electorate in Kamloops.”

Davies says Watchdog will continue door knocking and urge residents to vote against the process.

“We’re hopeful that they will see the error of their ways and cancel the AAP process and go to a referendum,” said Davies.

Kamloops residents have until 4:00 p.m. on Friday September 13 to submit completed Elector Response Forms either by email or in person at City Hall.

The results of the alternative approval process will be presented at the following city council meeting on September 24.

Ed. note: A previous version of this story stated residents have a 30-day window to return response forms. That is actually the provincially legislated minimum window for an AAP. In this case, the window was actually 45 days. We apologize for the error.

by Sydney Chisholm

Build Kamloops AAP deadline approaching, residents on both sides

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