In front of a standing-room-only crowd at City Hall, Penticton council voted 5-1 Monday evening to withdraw its submission to bring a 360-cell provincial prison to the municipality’s city limits.
The city had submitted two possible sites — one on Campbell Mountain and another near the Cantex gravel pit — in response to a Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General announcement that the province was seeking a location for a new correctional facility somewhere in the Okanagan. Both of the sites are now officially off the table.
The decision follows the result of last week’s official opinion poll which saw two-thirds of the voters reject the idea of building and operating the correctional centre in Penticton. About 24 per cent of the community’s 26,500 eligible voters cast a ballot in the poll, with 4,302 opposed to the correctional centre and 2,143 in favour.
Ironically, the only member of council to vote against Monday evening’s motion to withdraw the city’s prison submission was also the only one to actively campaign against the facility: Coun. Garry Litke.
That is because the motion included a last-minute addition, proposed by Coun. Mike Pearce, “that the city provide a letter of support to any other applicant outside the city that can demonstrate an economic benefit to the city of the highest magnitude.”
“I think it muddies the water,” Litke said before the vote. “You can play with the numbers however you want (but) 4,302 votes in opposition to the correctional facility within the city is a significant mandate. In fact, that is a greater number than a lot of us around this table got in the last municipal election.
“The motion that is on the floor right now I think does a little sidestepping around what the community has said to us.”
Pearce pointed out that the motion states that for a proposed prison location to receive a letter of support from council it would have to be located outside of Penticton’s city limits.
Presumably, there are three nearby local governments which have made submissions to the province that might consider asking Penticton for a letter of support: Summerland, the Osoyoos Indian Band and the Penticton Indian Band.
Monday night’s meeting saw some discussion as to whether or not one of the two locations submitted to the province by the PIB — also near the Cantex gravel pit — would be eligible to receive a letter of support as it sits on the band’s land but is completely surrounded by the City of Penticton.
Pearce suggested it was a moot point, asserting, “the province will not go near that piece of property (because) they know the descent they are facing a quarter of a mile away.”
The letter of support idea, Pearce said, was simply a matter of council looking to further Penticton’s economic interests.
“I (proposed this) on behalf of every person in this community that needs more employment,” said Pearce. “We need economic development.”
Anti-prison activist Tom Bijvoet took issue with council offering to potentially provide letters of support for the building of the prison in locations close to Penticton.
“I am just dumbfounded that after the community has voted with a two-thirds majority against the prison that they would do that,” said Bijvoet.
“The mayor and some councillors have spoken about healing rifts in the community. I think that this is just going to open them up wider. I don’t understand why they would want to do that.”
Bijvoet helped organize a group called Citizens Against a Penticton Prison which gathered 3,458 signatures urging the city to withdraw its bids.
“It was two-to-one against the prison; what more could you ask for?” said Bijvoet of the opinion poll results. “It just goes to show what we have said all along: ‘There is no support in this community. A prison just does not fit in this community or in the South Okanagan.’”
With the exception of Litke, all on council expressed some kind of disappointment with the way the opinion poll went, particularly the low voter turnout and the manner in which, on occasion, the debate within the community, they said, was reduced in quality by misinformation or disrespectful discourse.
Noting that both his kids had to move out of town to pursue careers elsewhere, Jakubeit called on those who said Penticton can do better than a prison to tell council what they would like the city to do.
“We are all in this together,” he said.
Mayor Dan Ashton said he appreciates those voters who took the time to cast a ballot in the poll.
“I want to thank everybody for coming out and participating,” said Ashton. “This council said from the beginning it would listen to the community when we make decisions and that is what we are doing.”
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