Went to a firestorm and a community hall broke out.
Last week’s annual meeting on the status of the Hosmer firehall replacement resulted in Regional District of East Kootenay Area A director Thomas McDonald and staff getting hosed down … yet again.
I almost feel sorry for them. Almost. It was a classic example of government’s favoured top-down approach, rather than a bottom-up one.
To be fair, McDonald inherited a mess from his predecessor who sprung the firehall replacement on Hosmerites as one of his last acts. Mike Sosnowski thought the community would be happy, after all, he has secured $4 million so taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook for more money. They weren’t happy at all and let him know it.
McDonald got elected and then took a year to bring the issue back to Hosmer. At that time, he paused the process, after getting severe flak from the good folks in Hosmer, in order to get some actual reports down as to why the hall should be moved to the corner of Dicken Road and Kmiecik Road. He even got staff to look at some options.
It then took another year to present those options, which is what happened last week. The options include the Dicken Road site, tearing the hall down and rebuilding on the current site which would result in the loss of the firehall, and building a new secondary garage in the existing parking that will accommodate the new truck, but pretty much lose the parking lot. The new truck is kind of what precipitated everything as it will not fit in the old firehall which, as we heard, is in a state of disrepair, including a well that freezes up in the winter.
Something needs to be done. Doing nothing will result in the residents losing the firehall all together as it will likely soon not meet code requirements.
What surprised McDonald and the RDEK staff at the meeting is the fact that as much as Hosmerites want to keep the firehall, they equally fear losing the community hall.
If only the experts had known that before they wrote the reports.
The option that I believe most Hosmer residents would support is to replace the existing firehall and community hall on the existing site. That, however, would almost undoubtedly require more than the $4 million squirrelled away by Sosnowski.
Many Hosmer residents called for a referendum on the matter. The option of replacing both the firehall and community hall would require the regional district to borrow money which, wait for it the irony is great, would require a referendum. And, there could be some cost savings as they would not be on the hook for spending $500,000 for 2.5 acres of property on Dicken Road. Yes, a few jaws dropped at that price.
McDonald should take a page out of Fernie Mayor Nic Milligan’s playbook. When the Fernie Community Centre was forced to close, Milligan struck a steering committee comprised of affected user groups to look at options. That way the solution comes from the bottom up, not the top down.
McDonald could have, and still can, form a similar committee to look at replacing the Hosmer firehall. One of the biggest complaints is that this process has been driven out of Cranbrook, rather than Hosmer. Tasking community members with finding solutions gives ownership and buy-in.
Bill Phillips is an award-winning columnist with 35 years of experience in community journalism.
