West Kelowna referendum to decide fate of city hall

The fate of a controversial city hall and civic centre project in West Kelown, B.C.,will be decided in a referendum on Saturday.

Voters are being asked to approve borrowing up to $7.7 million. The remainder of the project's $14.8-million tab would be taken out of reserves.

Since West Kelowna became a stand-alone municipality over eight years ago, an old recreation centre has served as its temporary city hall.

Some city employees have to work out of portables and eight workers were recently forced out of their offices because of a rat infestation.

"We're trying to address an issue related to the quarters our employees are in currently, which are inadequate," West KelownaMayorDoug Findlatersaidto Daybreak South host Chris Walker.

Second attempt

The city was forced to go to a referendum after voters defeated its first attempt to get approval for the project using the Alternate Approval Process last May.

In the AAP, voters are given 30 days to register their disapproval. If less than 10 per cent of the electorate does so, the initiative can go ahead.

A total of 3,871 voters registered their disapproval, over1,200 more thanwas needed to defeat it.

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Ian Graham lead last spring's campaign to defeat the AAP and is spearheading the Nocampaign this time around.

"Our goal is to save the taxpayer money, and borrowing the $7.7 million and taking the $7.1 million out of the already depleted reserves is too high right now," he said.

Dispute over location

Graham wants the city to build the project on land it already owns rather than buying new land near the downtown core.

He figures such a move would save between $655,000 and $1.2 million.

"That could be used towards our needed reserves, sidewalks, road upgrades or other such requirements," he said.

Findlater said building the project in the proposed location will help spur much-needed economic revitalization in the city centre.

He also said the project will include space that will be used by the Interior Health Authority to consolidate a number of health services that are currently housed in different locations.

Both Graham and Findlater say they expect Saturday's vote to be close.

More than 3,100 voters have already cast their ballots in advance polls that's approximately 12 per cent of eligible voters.

With files from CBC Radio's Daybreak South