The co-chair of the North Cariboo Joint Planning Committee says there was no flip flop by the four northern CRD Directors.
Jim Glassford, the Cariboo Regional District Director for Area I, says the city basically moved the goal posts between the two meetings…
“The deal at that point was they were going to put up gas tax money towards our share because it was only 73 percent that could be funded and then they were going to try and get funding elsewhere.  A week and a half later they come back and they wanted 922 thousand dollars from sub regional rec.  You can’t change the rules mid stream and expect everybody to be on board, it doesn’t work that way.”
Glassford says the four northern Regional District Directors were uncomfortable with going that route…
“We’d have to borrow that money because we don’t have enough in reserves anymore, to put in against the loan.  Well I guess I wasn’t totally clear when we were at the meeting but for me, if you’re going to borrow money and you’re going to put in a 3.4 million dollar building for gymnastics, then you better go to the people and ask them if that’s what they want.”
Glassford says some City Councillors weren’t in favour of that…
“They figured the referendum wouldn’t pass.  Well if the referendum isn’t going to pass, well then maybe you should be rethinking your strategy because if the people don’t want it, they’re the ones that are paying for it, and I won’t vote for it unless we get a referendum.”
Glassford also questions whether or not they have that much in reserves…
“I believe we have somewhere in the neighbourhood of 600 thousand in reserve.  And we can’t use up our reserves down to nothing.  If something gives up in one of the arenas or the pool or whatever, we’ve got to have money to fix it.  So you’ve got to keep a little bit in reserves in case something comes up.”
Glassford says they are not against putting in a gymnastics facility, they just want to ask the people if they’re willing to pay for some of it.