Sicamous council is pursuing further action at a provincial level after the rec centre service review with the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD) ended in an impasse between the two partners.
At the June 11 meeting, council received CSRD chair Natalya Melnychuk's report from the review, which consisted of two meetings between Mayor Colleen Anderson and Area E director Rhona Martin, stating "the participants did not arrive at a consensus for change."
Though it was a disappointing outcome, chief administrative officer Dean Strachan said it did result in some positive developments, including the employment of new manger Justin Englot who will work out of the rec centre.
"We’re looking forward to working with Justin to see improvements that the district wants. We’re already seeing things happen within the arena facility which are good news – trophy cases have been returned," he said.
Anderson agreed that some progress was made, with the CSRD having Englot spending 70 to 80 per cent of his time on Sicamous issues, but still wants to take the review process to the next level.
"My opinion... is that we continue with seeking the province to sever the ties that be, and while that process is going to probably be a year, year-and-a-half to come to fruition," she said, "It is what it is, but we have to now move on to provincial and work with the new appointed manager of the rec centre.”
The rest of council was onboard with moving forward on that, with Coun. Ian Baillie noting some of the flaws with the existing agreement.
“At the very least it needs to be updated , it’s a 40-year-old agreement already. And I still have concerns over the funding split... that we’re still in a situation where we have no say on the operation of the arena, that concerns me greatly," he said. "I don’t like that this was blocked by one person. We tried to negotiate..."
Coun. Siobhan Rich emphasized the latter point that resulted in the impasse, saying the public needs to know there were two people at the table "and Area E director Rhona Martin chose not to sit at the table and talk about this."
"This affects our community and I think it absolutely needs to go to the province.”
Council supported a motion to request the province to assign an adjudicator to the service review, and have staff continue to work closely with the CSRD on the management and use of the facility.
