The long-anticipated downtown Kamloops performing arts centre is one of two projects eyed in a pair of proposed $275 million loans. Opposing voters have until Sept. 13, 2024 to sign petitions.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

BC cities have been using counter petitions for years to gauge voter sentiment on big projects. It's far from novel in Kamloops even, but that doesn't mean they've all gone smoothly.

Kamloops is past the halfway point in its $275 million counter petition and it's not without criticism. It hasn't been enough to change the City's direction, but other cities have abandoned their counter petitions, or Alternative Approval Processes, after facing pushback from voters.

Kamloops is in the middle of not one but two concurrent counter petitions which will determine the future of the performing arts centre and a newly-proposed multiplex. Those opposed to either of the combined loans have until September 13 to sign the city hall petitions.

Last year, the mayor of Burnaby even said the process would never be used again under his watch because of the voter response. It was looking for voter approval to borrow $182 million to build a organic waste facility over 20 acres of wetland along the Fraser River.

There was staunch criticism launched at Burnaby city hall last spring as voters were asked to take part in the Alternative Approval Process. They had more than a month to sign the counter petitions, but the opposition was so great, Mayor Mike Hurley called a special council meeting where they voted to cancel the petition, according to BurnabyNow.

“As long as I’m around here, we will never attempt to use that AAP process again,” he said.

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Further west, Nanaimo is approaching its third attempt at a counter petition in two years for its civic works facility. Twice the city failed to properly conduct the Alternative Approval Process for a $48.5-million loan, but the project has changed and it's now a potential $90 million loan on the third attempt.

Nanaimo lawyer Sanford Bartlett has led a charge against the counter petition in Nanaimo and takes credit for pointing out the city's communication failings on its first two attempts. Nanaimo city hall abandoned the previous counter petitions once taking note of the errors, one for an advertising error and the other for making forms available a day late.

Kamloops has made no such errors, however, and it so far appears all rules set by the province have been followed, but Bartlett took notice of the errors out of concern that the matter should have gone through to a referendum instead of the counter petition.

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"The thought process behind doing an AAP is when you have a need in your community, you want to feel out your community to see whether or not there's any opposition," Bartlett said. "It's not really designed as a way to borrow money, it's designed to get a feeling from the community."

Provincial government guidance said the process is used to "test the waters" for voter approval. While the guidelines are not cut-and-dried, the province tells local governments that a controversial issue that requires "significant" taxpayer contribution or has a "significant" impact on the community should likely go straight to referendum.

Some might say the Kamloops performing arts centre has been controversial as one form of the facility was turned down with a 53 per cent referendum no vote in 2015. That was for a $49 million loan. In 2020, a second referendum for a $70 million loan was abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expectations were that it would eventually return as there was no decision on the proposal. When talk of the facility came back to council in 2023, the cost had ballooned and by this summer it nearly doubled the last borrowing estimate.

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There is at least one small group leading a campaign to collect as many signatures as possible to oppose the borrowing millions in Kamloops for a new performing arts centre and a separate multiplex, which if defeated would likely force a referendum on both multi-million dollar loans.

Just how well that campaign is going isn't clear. The group opposed has so far refused an interview with iNFOnews.ca and the City won't release a running tally of the counter petition signatures to "preserve the integrity of the process."

The process has been used several times in Kamloops over the past two decades and at least one counter petition saw a successful campaign that far surpassed the required signatures, putting down a planned two-storey parkade at Riverside Park.

The group behind the current no campaign is attempting to tally the signatures its aware of, but the public won't know the official counts from city hall until the Sept. 24 council meeting, a city spokesperson said in a written statement.

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