Coun. Mike O'Reilly (right) announces that construction on the downtown performing arts centre and Dufferin arena will go ahead at a Sept. 23, 2024, news conference.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

A group of Kamloops residents are trying to oust a Kamloops city councillor from office over a multi-million dollar arena project, claiming he stands to gain from its chosen location and should have recused from the process.

Councillor Mike O'Reilly's Comet Industries owns the Iron Mask industrial park, several kilometres from the the arena's Kenna Cartwright park location.

On Oct. 30, ten people signed the action that could have a judge rule over whether O'Reilly should have stepped away from any role in deciding where the city would built the $135 million project.

The BC Supreme Court petition claims the arena has the "appearance" of benefiting O'Reilly's business interests with his company Comet Industries. It seeks to have the second-term councillor disqualified from office until the 2026 election and to start a consultation process that includes the "wider community."

O'Reilly said he learned of the petition over the weekend, but he was out of the country when reached for a comment and not available for an interview.

"I will share my next steps in a few days once I have thoroughly reviewed the information," he said in a written statement. "I do want to express that in my role as an elected city councillor, I have always conducted myself with transparency and integrity, recusing myself from any discussions or decisions where there could be a conflict of interest. I look forward to clearing up this matter as soon as possible."

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Although he wasn't able to respond to specifics in the court filing, O'Reilly did speak with iNFOnews.ca in August about the location. At the time he said he did not feel there was a conflict.

He said council guidance around properties up for a rezoning vote is generally to recuse from those within a 200-metre buffer, much closer than the distance between the proposed arena and the industrial park.

"If anybody was making decisions on if they're within six kilometres of a property, we wouldn't have quorum for 90 per cent of the decisions we make around the council table," he said.

The court petition measures the distance at four kilometres. Measured through provincial mapping software, the distance in a straight line from the arena property to the 190-acre industrial park appears closer to three kilometres.

It was a council committee called Build Kamloops that assessed their options before landing on the Kenna Cartwright property, a piece of land already owned by the city. O'Reilly is at the head of that committee.

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That process wasn't publicly debated, but it's not uncommon for real estate discussions to be behind closed doors. In an August council meeting, O'Reilly said they had considered land that was private, provincially owned land and reserve land at Tk'emlups.

"We looked all over," he said. "Ultimately, what we decided was rather than investing money in a private land acquisition, we want to put that money into the facility itself."

He said they wanted to choose a location that had the most economic spin-off. When he spoke with iNFOnews.ca that month, he suggested that much of the direct gain would come from families visiting Kamloops to use the arena, perhaps staying at nearby hotels and shopping at Aberdeen Mall, while the industrial park is "specifically not allowed" to host retail and wouldn't be affected.

The petition claims O'Reilly's involvement "had the potential to taint the process" and risks public confidence in politicians.

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It argues the industrial park has the potential to host worker housing specifically for construction crews at the arena in two year's time. It also said the industrial park will need fill material that "could potentially" be supplied from the arena site.

The petitioners said O'Reilly is a "veteran councillor" who "cannot claim failure to declare a potential pecuniary conflict of interest was inadvertent or due to an error in judgement."

The $135 million loan to build the arena was approved through a counter petition through August and part of September. Construction is expected to start in 2026, but it's not clear how long it would take to choose a new location if the petition is successful. It's also not clear when it will go in front of a judge.

The petitioners, who include former councillor Denis Walsh, are represented by Bronwen Scott.

— This story was corrected at 8:25 a.m., Nov. 7, 2024, to remove a reference to Bronwen Scott being a Kamloops resident.

— This story was updated at 2 p.m., Nov. 7, 2024, to add more information about the distance between Iron Mask industrial park and the proposed arena land.

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