VIDEO – More than 120 people stood outside city hall on Thursday, March 1 as the debate about a new library raged on inside at the City of Powell River’s council meeting. Powell River Fire Rescue officials enforced the building’s occupancy limit, allowing 71 people inside.
Dino Ciarniello was on the agenda, for the second consecutive council meeting, to speak for opponents of the proposed location for a new library, the vacant lot on the corner of Marine Avenue and Abbotsford Street known as the old arena site.
Wearing a button that stated Save Willingdon Beach, Ciarniello told council a petition opposed to the location now had 3,500 signatures. He reminded councillors that during the election campaign they all said the city needs to be leaner and more efficient and taxes need to be reduced. He pointed out the main line from Haslam Lake to the city’s drinking water system needs to be replaced, a new wastewater treatment facility needs to be built, as well as a new firehall, and the city is beginning to pay back loans incurred for capital projects. The city has shifted taxes from major industrial to residential and small business in an effort to help Catalyst Paper Corporation, Ciarniello said, but has not cut spending. “You’re taxing people out of their homes. Curtail spending,” he said.
He referred to a covenant that is on the property, designating the land “for park purposes only.” In 1978, Renee McPhee, Sis Wilcocks and Gladys Cockrill advocated to preserve the lot as parkland. “In 2012, here we are again, with Renee’s son Al sitting here, fighting to protect that piece of property. It is parkland. Leave it alone.”
Cleve Hamilton also spoke against the Willingdon Beach location. He said MP John Weston, who represents West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country, will be presenting the petition to the Speaker in the House of Commons in Ottawa in the near future. He said the property has history and a covenant. “I don’t think we’re being too unreasonable here when we say we support the library. We have no problem with the new library. How come we can not have a compromise here? You can have your library. You just can’t have it on Willingdon Beach.”
Mary Tilberg spoke for a new library at the old arena site, which she said is the best location. “The slogan we’ve all been hammered with in the last little while, Save Willingdon Beach, is highly misleading as it tells people that the new library would somehow ruin the park,” she said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
She pointed out the three concepts presented by architects recently use less than 20 per cent of the lot. “Any of those plans would only enhance the beauty of the area that at present remains a gravelly building site. Yes, we refer to it as the old arena site because that’s exactly what it was, a building site.”
Before the presentations, Mayor Dave Formosa said he was recommending that council should not accept any more delegations on the library issue, unless there was new information to share. Councillors agreed, but Councillor Maggie Hathaway said she thought the city should make a commitment to have a referendum on location. “I don’t want to lose the library and I think that might happen, on site,” she said. “I just don’t want that to happen.”
Opponents applauded the suggestion, but supporters did not, with some booing and calling out “shame.”
Councillor Myrna Leishman agreed with Hathaway. “I think we do need to have a referendum so that the whole community can get out there and tell us what they want,” she said. “The way it is now, it’s just everybody fighting against each other and I would hate to see us go to referendum on the finances and people turn it down because of the site.” She said the referendum should ask people if they want a library, then provide a range of locations.
Other councillors, however, did not agree.
Formosa said council needs to let the process continue. He also said that before a new library could be built at the site, council would have to pass a resolution to remove the covenant.
