Castlegar city council has deferred exploring the development of a natural amphitheatre at Millennium Park to council’s strategic planning sessions in February 2022.
Several items related to developing the project were on the Dec. 6 council agenda. The motions included adding the project in the city’s five-year capital plan, establishing a steering committee and applying for a grant to fund community engagement on the project.
Creating an amphitheatre at the park was the number one suggestion from the Castlegar 75th Anniversary Committee, a group of community stakeholders, service group representatives, city councilor liaisons and city staff who met over the last year to brainstorm ideas to mark the important anniversary.
Originally the group had hoped to spearhead the project as a legacy to mark the city’s 75th anniversary.
Over several months, the amphitheatre idea grew, but it became evident that the project had a larger scope than could be developed in one year.
Financing the project would be grant dependent and include contributions from local service organizations, businesses and industry.
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Several councillors and Mayor Kirk Duff were not ready to move forward with the idea so the decision was made to refer the matter to strategic planning sessions so councillors could do more research and have a thorough discussion on the matter.
Sue Heaton-Sherstibitoff, who participated in the anniversary committee meetings, was in favour of going forward with the first steps of the projects. She was concerned that if the project is delayed by too long, the momentum from the committee could be lost and those contributions may not materialize.
Cherryl MacLeod agreed, saying she would hate to see all the work of the committee and staff up to this point be for nothing.
At the end of the meeting, MacLeod encouraged members of the public to let councillors know how they feel about the project before February.
betsy.kline@castlegarnews.com
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