Certainly congratulations are in order for the Vernon and District Taxpayers Association on collecting 6,000 signatures in the alternate approval process targeting the borrowing of $20 million to construct a new library complex. They only needed 2,777, or 10 per cent of voters, so unless John Smith’s John Henry is down there a couple thousand times, the city won’t be borrowing money anytime soon to buy books. Although the association members and volunteers should take comfort in rallying the troops and tapping into voter discontent over the alternate approval process, last week’s events are more about who lost than who won. Certainly the taxpayers group gains credibility and clout for spearheading this successful campaign, and democracy is a winner as residents rose up to kill an arrogant attempt to sidestep a referendum. The media also wins a little for questioning this ill-advised attempt to push through a library complex from the beginning. But that’s the point. This should never have been attempted in the first place. Sure council was tired of spinning its wheels for years on the library issue and worrying that regional money would go by the wayside if they didn’t act soon to build one. They were trying to look decisive and practical, instead it came across as cynical, high-handed, and ultimately, just plain wrong. We went to referendum for the multiplex and performing arts centre and they cost considerably less than $20 million. Why should the library be any different? A perceived tight timeline is no excuse for circumventing democracy. But it’s the political will, or mood, of the people that council misjudged on this one that doomed this summertime fling with democracy. In a different climate this might have sailed through without a whisper of protest and come September people would look through the pages of their community newspaper and proclaim: “Hey, it looks like we’re finally getting a library. Hey, it says here we’re borrowing 20 million bucks to do it. How the heck did that happen?”
But, alas, this is a community that has built a new arena and theatre fairly recently, taken on an ambitious and expensive water upgrade plan (once described by a former mayor as ‘Perrier coming out of our taps,’ not thinking that it’s also in our toilets) with no upper-level government funding in sight, and not to mention launched and eventually abandoned a cultural facility, that would include a library, on the old Coldstream Hotel sight, that apparently now is just a very expensive parking lot that may or may not be sold to get our money back one day. Yikes. And you want us to borrow $20 million to build a library/city offices/RCMP overflow tower shoehorned into the civic complex through a shameful negative-billing campaign? In a word, no. Six thousand times, no. Mayor and council have not only lost the battle on this one, they may have lost the valid bid to finally get improved library facilities in this community. That’s the problem with political wars, there’s always collateral damage.
The other loser is the alternate approval process, it obviously shouldn’t be attempted again in these parts for some time, if ever at all, for anything. Council would be wise to lick their wounds, learn from their mistake and come up with an honest, straightforward way to proceed on this issue. Winners are people who learn and succeed despite setbacks..... but the political clock is ticking.
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