By Plain Rhetoric

More discussion about City Hall

Sep 4, 2018 | 10:08 AM

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I asked readers to let me know what was on their minds regarding the upcoming City Election. What were the questions needing answers?

We know from past experience that there’s a tendency for politicians to avoid direct answers. We also know that putting one’s name on new ideas, being accountable and creating a movement from the ground up are not items you often find in political CVs.

With rare exceptions, such as the recent grassroots movement on needle returns, promises without a plan and accountability are empty bromides, a feel-good but essentially meaningless election platform.

So let’s take those candidate safety nets down and begin this series with a question from readers, a question where responsibility, action and budget lay squarely at the feet of City Hall. They were asking about the Performing Arts Centre (PAC) 

Originally, the proposed site for a Performing Arts Centre was the corner of Fourth and Seymour.  But referendums fail, time marches on and the building originally there and purchased by the city was demolished. It became a vast sea of asphalt, a parking lot, a monument to missed opportunities that now pays tribute to the benefits of carbon emissions instead of the arts.

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Thanks to inaction, the old and uninspired ideas are dead and I think I’m safe in suggesting that political will to champion a PAC might be in limited supply as well. To do so will incur the wrath of those who will want to remind you of that past referendum’s “No” and we all know that naysayers are the antipathy of politicians looking for the comfort and security of fence-sitting. 

Fence sitters be damned though, as readers want to revisit the PAC, so I’ll initiate that conversation by suggesting there is a time and a place for a Performing Arts Centre in Kamloops and it is now.  

However, the downtown core is not that place and $90 million taxpayer dollars is excessive. Instead, I feel the PAC needs to be on the North Shore and located on the Henry Grube site.

Yes I realize this will not make me the poster child for those who believe that four blocks of Victoria St. are the centre of the Kamloops universe.  However, take a moment along with a deep breath and just imagine a PAC situated where the North and South Thompson Rivers meet. On that point of land, it would overlook and be overlooked by the City and the combination of site and design could turn it into an iconic centre that would define Kamloops for decades to come.  

It could be a centrepiece for the city; combining buildings, parks, waterfront terraces, public spaces and walkways that would tie into the existing pathways along the river. A performing arts centre with a traditional theatre that could also include an outdoor amphitheatre as home base for Project X and serve as an outdoor summer concert location for the Kamloops Symphony.  

As for money? Partner with a hotel and allow the facilities to be shared as a new conference/convention centre. Partner with BC Hydro and Fortis BC and make it the most energy efficient centre in Canada. Partner with Telus and create a communications demonstration project that would enable live-streaming events that would bring the arts to our rural communities. Land acquisition costs could be reduced, maybe even eliminated if the city were to consider trading their infamous parking lot on 4th and Seymour for the Henry Grube location.

In return, the city would get a location that would be recognized for generations to come as the cultural and public spaces heart of our city. It would also be recognized as the forerunner of advanced environmental and communication technologies in arts centre design.

It would be a commitment that refocused development and attention to the North Shore but not at the expense of the south shore. Instead we begin to grow up, act like adults and realize, recognize and celebrate that real cities actually thrive because of differing neighbourhoods.

It’s called, among other things, vitality. Where a city’s life, energy and spirit are a sum of its parts. And a healthy city is a city that encourages and facilitates that diversity and spirit of neighbourhood.