Draining the trough

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star Published: July 15, 2008

It's amazing how bureaucrats and politicians so readily think that the money and assets they administer are theirs, when that isn't even close to the truth. A good example of this is the situation that has arisen over N'Kwala Park in the south BX. The Vernon School District purchased that site in 1977 as a potential location for a school. As we all know, a school was never constructed there, but the Greater Vernon Services Committee has leased the land for the last 20 years for soccer fields, a playground and basketball court. Now, the school district has launched a process to sell the property, which all Greater Vernon residents, and especially those in the adjacent MacDonald Road neighbourhood, have come to take for granted as open space. It's now anticipated that GVSC will try and acquire the property so it can remain in public hands, and that's where the problem exists. While the school district and GVSC are two unrelated agencies, they are both funded by the same source — you and me, the taxpayers. So a property that the public shelled out good cash for in 1977 is now going to be bought again by the same taxpayers. There is also the reality that the school district has put very little cash into the property since it was acquired 31 years ago. Instead, GVSC has made a considerable investment through lease payments as well as developing and maintaining the sports facilities there.

And perhaps the most galling part is that the school district has been forced to sell the property so it can help subsidize the provincial government's rebuilding of Vernon Secondary School. Education is a provincial responsibility but the construction of schools is being downloaded on to the backs of local taxpayers. Unfortunately, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Greater Vernon residents. If GVSC purchases N'Kwala Park, our taxes go up. But if GVSC doesn't take control of the site, it will be placed on the open market for sale and green space could be replaced by a residential subdivision. And this isn't the first time that the provincial government has made a buck off taxpayers by selling us something we already own. Last year, residents at Kingfisher, at the north end of Mabel Lake, agreed to borrow $175,000 to purchase the vacant school site there from the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District so it could remain a community asset. But local taxes had already been used to purchase the land in the 1950s for a school, and the Kingfisher Community Club had been maintaining the building since its closure in 2000. It was a double-whammy for the folks at Kingfisher.

Perhaps I am too naive, and don't understand how the world works. Maybe I don't see the clear distinction between a provincially mandated school board and a parks function operated by a local regional district. It could be that such transactions are a normal course of business. But then again, my confusion could also be a direct result of politicians and bureaucrats slurping up water at the same taxpayer-irrigated trough.