The Chair of the Kamloops Centre for the Arts Society says he’s aware of a number of misconceptions and misinformation that is out there about the proposed Performing Arts Centre.
Norm Daley says the society’s main goal right now is to give people accurate information about the project.
“People are talking about what the price of the project is going to be. The price of the project is maximum $70 million,” he said on the NL Morning News. “I mean we can borrow $45 million, we can’t borrow more than that – that’s what the referendum is all about.”
“To get to $70 million, we have to raise the rest of the money. The project is $70 million, it’s not something bigger or smaller, that’s the scope of the project because of what the referendum allows us to do.”
Daley made a presentation to city council today to bring them up to speed on where things stand ahead of the April 4 referendum.
He says the feedback from the community has mostly been positive.
“There’s people that are for the proposal, there’s people that are undecided, and people who are against. You know I hear these rumours and I’m going, ‘no, read the facts. Like get the information,'” Daley added.
“The City of Kamloops has a great website on that, our website has a lot of information about the business case. Really a lot of these things are covered and really that’s what it is all about, is making sure that we get the facts out to the people and then they can make an informed decision.”
Outside of parking, Daley says there is also misinformation circulating over taxes.
“Taxes won’t go up in regards to the building of the facility because other debt is coming offline. I guess could taxes go down? I’m not sure, that’s not my decision to make through the city,” Daley said.
“You know I see a lot of people with their budgeting, they’re always budgeting for a certain payment, and that’s what we are doing. We are rolling this project in, or this debt in, to where other debt was before.”
The Kamloops Centre for the Arts Society is looking to fundraise at least another $22 million for the centre, while philanthropists Ron and Rae Fawcett have committed to donate $3 million as well as land downtown which would be part of the Performing Arts Centre property.
