Important decisions lay ahead for City of Vernon and Regional District of North Okanagan citizenry.
We have long discussed the pros and cons of enhancing our art gallery and museum spaces and now a decision may loom. After a proposed referendum to move ahead with the funding we may well end up having a new cultural showplace of which we can all be proud for generations to come.
At the very same time, we are about to disassemble the once state of the art Civic Arena.
The Civic contains within it a very useful and valuable resource that could be utilized in the construction of our new showplace facility.
If you have stood in the Civic and looked skywards you saw a jumble of steel-reinforced wooden trusses. These timber trusses contain long clear spans of high-quality Douglas Fir timbers, the likes of which are seldom seen. These trusses were manufactured at a time when immense trees were plentiful in our region. These timbers will now become available for repurposing.
I see these beams being featured prominently in our soon to be built cultural centre on display for many more generations.
Many fine examples of public buildings including the Ottawa airport interior are better for having utilized similar repurposed timbers.
Let us not squander this opportunity to save building material costs while providing a legacy for our Civic arena and a more beautiful gallery and museum.
Jeff Moore
