The City of Quesnel will no longer be making a bid to host the 2024 BC Winter Games.
While Council received a resolution of partnership from the Lhtako Dene First Nation and letters of support from both the Cariboo Regional District and Quesnel’s Board of Education among others, it didn’t get the necessary endorsement from the School District’s partners, namely from CUPE and the Teachers Association.
Many on Council, including Mitch Vik, were disappointed.
He wanted to know if they could submit an incomplete bid and get the missing letter later.
“We’ve come 95 percent of the way here. We’ve got letters from everybody it seems, and it just seems a huge shame and frankly a waste of staff time that so much effort has already been put into this, that we’ve throw in the towel now.”
City Manager Byron Johnson noted that there was no longer enough time to get a bid in before Friday’s deadline.
“We came to the conclusion that this is such an onerous process that we don’t think that we could submit it on time if that’s all we worked on this week. It has to be in their hands hard copy by this Friday down in Victoria, so it is not possible to do that as this point in time.”
Mayor Bob Simpson noted that there may be a problem with the structure of the Games themselves that is acting as a stumbling block with these partners.
“They must have some mechanism that other communities have used, other school districts have used etc, to be able to accommodate this and maybe they need to look at their own model so that this kind of circumstance doesn’t occur.”
Councillor Ron Paull took a glass half full approach to the situation…
“We do have one card up our sleeve and that is the fact that, I know we’re looking at the 2024 Games, but lets not lose sight of the fact that four years down the road from that, 2028, is our 100th anniversary and maybe that’s the target we should be aiming at.”
Some Councillors suggested that the City work on the issues that prevented the groups from supporting the bid so that they are ready for the next time around.
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