The District of Sicamous is continuing efforts to acquire further control of operations of the community recreation centre.
Sicamous council wants a service review of the current agreement with the Columbia Shuswap Regional District (CSRD), which owns the arena. However, in an initial meeting with a facilitator, the district found the other party involved – Area E director Rhona Martin – unwilling to negotiate.
“She did meet with us twice, she’s just choosing, she does not want the District of Sicamous to manage the arena, she thinks it should stay with the CSRD," Mayor Colleen Anderson said of the failed discussions. "And until we get a service review, we’re kind of stuck there.”
Following that stalemate, Sicamous asked the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs to appoint another facilitator to help both sides reach an agreement. The response was that the ministry has limited facilitator resources and wouldn't be assigning one to the district at this time, but could hire their own if they so wanted. That, however, would be a moot point if Martin still refused to participate.
“OK, this is truly perplexing. How do you get out of this? Because we’ve said, we’ve given notice, we’ve tried to negotiate. I mean, basically this agreement is dead... or it should be,” Coun. Ian Baillie said. “Like we’ve tried everything we could to reform it, so what’s the next step to say, we’re not part of this agreement anymore?”
Mayor Colleen Anderson said they could refuse the agreement and just not do it, but would lose the facility for the community. Chief administrative officer Dean Strachan confirmed that, adding that without a service agreement, the rec centre would be closed.
“So let me get this straight. We’re stuck with a 40-year agreement that we have issues with because someone else won’t negotiate, but we can’t cancel it," Baillie added. "Like, this is just getting ridiculous, and that’s why we’ve asked the province for help. There has to be someone who can adjudicate this.”
Strachan, however, clarified this would be a facilitator, not an adjudicator, and this person would just mediate conversation between the two parties and not actually make a decision on their behalves. With negotiation seemingly at a standstill for now, he added that council’s secondary direction was to have staff work with the CSRD and new arena manager.
“So we’re going to continue to move on. Whatever happens in the long run, staff are going to continue to work with the CSRD staff on making the improvements that council’s sought...” Strachan said. “So we’re not going to do nothing in the interim, we’re going to keep working on it.”
Despite that, Coun. Gord Bushell wanted to continue pursuing the matter, even if the district could just take it back to the CSRD board and push to get Martin onside and have the agreement redone.
“Our community is never going to go anywhere if we don’t get some kind of control of that rec centre,” he said. “The government of B.C. has a policy guide, guidelines for servicing establishment agreements. It says to review every five years. And John [MacLean, CSRD] sat here, the CAO, and said it should be reviewed. She’s never going to do it till election, but I think we should still push it.”
To move forward on this, staff was directed to write a letter to the Deputy Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs emphasizing the need for this to be resolved, and have staff arrange a meeting with Martin and deliver a letter requesting that she participate in conversations with a facilitator.
