An encampment in Herb Gardner Park below Williams Lake City Hall will be dismantled later this (Monday) afternoon.
“Early last week we noticed there was an encampment of one person, one structure, and we watched it grow quickly over the week and bring in more people to it during the evenings.” Gary Muraca, Chief Administrative Officer for the City said, “That brought more belongings, more structures, more undesirable activities that we felt were it was time to address them as they were safety related as well as impacting the general population in the area.”
Muraca said they reached out to the occupants of the encampment this morning and told them that we will be coming there at 3 o’clock to dismantle it and remove belongings from the park.
“We will be obviously offering them to take their belongings to a place where they can pick them up later if they need to or drop them off somewhere, we can do that as well, but Herb Gardner Park is not going to be the place for them moving forward.”
Muraca noted several other agencies will be assisting the City with the dismantling of the encampment line Canadian Mental Health, Interior Health, as well as some medical professionals for any requirements of medicine.
“There has been various discussion throughout the whole week last week. It got to the point where it was no longer safe for anybody for this encampment to stay where it’s at,” Muraca added.