The Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) board may have inadvertently funded the “Yes” side to the tune of $10,000 in the Castlegar Complex referendum to be held Saturday.
At Thursday’s meeting of the Regional District of Central Kootenay board, director Andy Davidoff brought forward a motion asking that the board donate $10,000 to a group promoting the “No” side.
He did this, he said, because the board decided at its May meeting to fund the group Ambassadors for the Complex Expansion (ACE), which Davidoff said has been campaigning for the “Yes” side.
RDCK Vice Chair and Castlegar Mayor Lawrence Chernoff disputed this, stating that the board had given the $10,000 to ACE for educational purposes only.
“What they are putting out is information, strictly information about the facts, the costs, the taxation,” Chernoff told the board. “They have done that on radio and on Facebook and all those kinds of things.”
CAO Stuart Horn reminded the board that in May it voted in favour of a motion to support “funding up to $10,000 to ACE for the purpose of an education campaign for the Castlegar Community Complex Enhancement upcoming referendum on June 23, 2018.”
“It was not a motion to support a ‘Yes’ vote,” Horn said, adding that he has not been monitoring the messages the group has been putting out.
If the referendum passes, it will authorize the RDCK to borrow up to $22,000,000 to enhance the recreation centre and aquatic centre.
Davidoff said ACE has in fact been advocating for the “Yes” side.
“There are ‘Yes’ signs with the ACE signature are all over Area I (the rural area Davidoff represents) and all over the city,” he said.
On the ACE Facebook page the Star has found a number of messages exhorting the public to vote “Yes.”
On Facebook, ACE describes itself, in part, as, “A group of community minded individuals who share the same vision on the merits and importance of this project, carrying-on the message that the public has communicated during this 4 year process: that recreation is important and we should proceed with the project enhancements….”
The Facebook page also describes the group as a registered sponsor under the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, which sets out rules for how money is to be spent in campaigning for a candidate or for one side in an assent vote.
Davidoff’s motion Thursday morning to contribute to the “No” campaign failed, although some board members voted in favour of it because they said they wanted to be even-handed, realizing that they may have, perhaps unintentionally, contributed financially to the “Yes” campaign.
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
