Kamloops council has narrowly voted against a one-year lease for a daycare to move into the now-vacant Stuart Wood School.
Details of a closed council meeting from Jan. 21 were released today, where council voted 4-3 against allowing the lease for the Children’s Circle Daycare. Mayor Ken Christian and councillors Dieter Dudy, Kathy Sinclair and Bill Sarai voted against the plan. Councillor Sadie Hunter was absent, and councillor Mike O’Reilly recused himself from the discussion because of a conflict of interest.
Sarai says the city didn’t get a solid answer from Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc on the proposal, as the band is an equal partner in using that property. The city at TteS signed a letter of understanding nearly a year ago which included coordinating the future use of Stuart Wood as a cultural centre.
“I still had to be on the side where it’s not our building to lease out without the direction of the people who are right now in charge of that building. And until they give us direction, it wasn’t our call. And that’s why I voted,” Sarai says.
At the closed meeting, council then voted unanimously not to allow any leases at Stuart Wood School until “an agreement with Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc is reached.”
Sarai says Interior Health is evicting the daycare from its space in Royal Inland Hospital on June 1, and says he’s disappointed, in part because IH has staff with children in that daycare.
“No one from Interior Health has ever come to us or any other agency and said, let’s help the Circle Daycare find a place. For them to throw it onto the city’s lap, and say ‘it’s all on you to find them a temporary place,’ I think that’s unfair. I wish Interior Health was more involved with the proposal of finding them a temporary building. And I, personally, in any of the reports, never heard anything from Interior Health.”
The Children’s Circle Daycare made the request to use part of Stuart Wood School on Dec. 24, asking to lease space for $24,000 for the year.
It’s reportedly being displaced from RIH because of the hospital expansion project; the daycare has a new home lined up in the Sagebrush neighborhood of Kamloops, however that won’t be built until June of 2021 and it needs a space in the interim.
