Statue outside the Kelowna Curling Club in Kelowna, June 21, 2018.

(JOHN MCDONALD / iNFOnews.ca)

KELOWNA - Earlier this month, Kelowna city councillors voted to loan the Kelowna Curling Club $300,000 so it could urgently replace its aging ice chiller and roof, in part because the club said it was handed a "mandatory" replacement by a provincial authority. 

But it turns out the mandatory replacement of the chiller wasn’t quite so mandatory after all.

The pitch to Kelowna councillors for the loan was both emotional and regulatory; the report to council said the ammonia-based chiller was worth $150,000 and was under a mandatory replacement order after a regulatory review and facility inspection triggered by the deaths last fall of three men, including some municipal employees, in an arena in Fernie, B.C.

While an earlier building assessment showed the need to replace both the roof and the chiller of the Kelowna Curling Club by 2023, the report asking for the loan, written by the city’s partnership manager Sandra Kochan, said the replacement of the chiller was no longer an option and had been ordered by the B.C. Safety Authority (now Technical Safety B.C.)

“Replacement of the unit is mandatory and must take place as soon as possible so that the facility is ready to make ice for upcoming events,” the report reads.

Based on that report, councillors voted to extend the requested funds for both the roof and the mandatory chiller replacement; $300,000 (minus a $50,000 grant from the city) at 2.75 per cent interest calculated on annually on the amounts advanced.

But that's not how Technical Safety B.C. sees it. It says the ammonia chiller replacement (and another at Prospera Place arena in downtown Kelowna) is not mandatory although there are "non-compliance issues" at the Kelowna Curling Club.

"Technical Safety B.C. has not issued safety orders requiring mandatory chiller replacements for either facility, Kelowna Curling Club or Prospera Place,” spokesperson Laura McLeod said in an e-mail statement. "These facilities may very well be replacing the chiller due to the age of the equipment or due to non-compliances we've identified, but we did not issue a safety order to these organizations requiring they do this."

City of Kelowna building services manager Martin Johansen, who confirmed the mandatory replacement order in a previous story, said a check with Kelowna Curling Club general manager Jock Tyre has produced a new definition of mandatory.

“In talking to him now, the order was not mandatory, however they understood it to be mandatory,” he said. “They were told they would have to staff the building 24 hours when the machine was running and they don’t have the resources to do that. They were not able to provide that level of operational coverage. That made it the same thing as mandatory.”

The club is also applying to the Provincial Gaming Branch for a capital project grant of $150,000 which would be used to offset the loan, depending on how much is granted.

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News from © iNFOnews, 2018