“VOTE YES”
I have recently been appointed as Vice Principal at Stanley Humphries Secondary School in Castlegar. I have enjoyed my initial interactions with the staff, students and community of Castlegar and I look forward to many years of service to the school.
In my first week at the school, City councillors came to visit our school to assist students with their plans to create a school-wide Relay for Life campaign, which by the way, is happening on June 19 at SH and promises to be awesome. While at the meeting, the councillors had a chance to describe the upcoming referendum for the upgrades at the recreation complex. It is my understanding from reading the newspaper, that is a fairly complicated and political process. I hope it has a chance to succeed.
While completing my Masters degree program I did a case study of the town of Olds, Alberta where they were facing a similar dilemma in the planning process of rebuilding schools and other city recreational infrastructure. In Olds, the stakeholders got together and rallied the community with the end results of a new school, theatre, recreational complex and additions to Olds College. It is a masterpiece of collaboration and innovation.
I see similar possibilities for Castlegar. What could be possible if the important stakeholders got together, talked about a vision for the future which at some point could include the building of a new school and maybe a community theatre? I started to wonder if this could be a part of a plan on the site of the Castlegar Recreation Complex. In Olds, the plan was to share the resources with the community along with sharing some of the capital funding for the project, and I thought maybe that could be possible here as well.
I don’t live in Castlegar, and as many of you know I have lived most of my life in the Beaver Valley area coaching the much-hated Nitehawks. I believe this type of recreational development could have a very positive effect on the Castlegar community. Regardless of the outcome, I wanted to throw this idea out to the public to get people talking about the possibilities that are available when people are willing to work together to make things happen.
For anyone interested, here is a link to the OECD document about the Olds collaboration. livebinders.com/play/play?id=198057
Sincerely,
Terry Jones, Vice Principal Stanley Humphries Secondary School
“VOTE NO”
There are many people out there that think the Castlegar Complex expansion is a great thing, and something that we “need”. I am sure many people are looking at this with the idea, it will only cost me $100 a year. I see it is an extra $100 on top of what I am already paying, and this is for the next 25 years. If I am lucky, (or not), I will live that long.
What else is going to be “needed” in the next 25 years? This will also be added on. How much taxation can we afford? Do we really “need” everything that is in this proposal? I have had cause to go to the complex on occasion. I very seldom see a lot of people there, unless there is an event. I do not see this changing, just because we have made all these proposed improvements?
Yes, there are people out there that want these things. Some residents, our mayor, and most of the council members. I have to ask, why did you give the big tax break to our local industry, Mercer (Celgar), and then ask the people to pay for things that the city needs (wants)? Where does it stop?
Albert Baker,
Castlegar
