Wayne Moore - Castanet Feb 16, 2011
A provincially owned parcel of industrial land near the border with Lake Country will not be the site of a jail. Kelowna Mayor Sharon Shepherd confirmed that news late Tuesday. Shepherd says the province made that decision several months ago, although it was not communicated with the city until recently. It seems the decision may have been made before Solicitor General Rich Coleman asked Okanagan municipalities to provide feedback on potential jail site by April of this year. Coleman says the province is committed to building a jail somewhere in the Okanagan by 2015. The province purchased land in Kelowna in the mid 1990's with an eye to eventually building a jail on the site. In 1996, Kelowna's council of the day approved an application by the province to rezone the land, which is across from lands owned by the Okanagan Indian Band, to allow for a jail to go on the site. The OIB and District of Lake Country were both extremely vocal against a jail being built so close to their boundaries. Shepherd says the city was informed just last week during a conference call with the province that the government is required to do extensive consultation as a result of a federal legal decision with First Nations. "By having that requirement they didn't feel they could meet the timeline of having this facility built by 2015 in that location," says Shepherd. "Nobody has ever said that to us before." Shepherd says the city had never been informed of such a requirement and questions why the province didn't inform them the site was off the table when the request was first made of Okanagan governments back in December. Now, Shepherd says Coleman has gone one step further saying a prison would never go on that site. "It was a total surprise to hear today it will never go through." She says a lot of time and a lot of provincial taxpayers money have been wasted on that site. "My frustration is that it has now wasted council's time, my time, our manager's time in trying to gather and understanding of the situation. When the letter went out in December if the minister had said then that the one site is off the table, we would have questioned it but nobody ever said that." Shepherd adds that a meeting council had planned to have with representatives of Lake Country and the Okanagan Indian Band to see if some resolution could be worked out is probably a waste of time. She will discuss with council Monday whether there is even a need to go ahead with it."
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