It appears the District of Clearwater has looked at leasing the building presently occupied by the Community Resource Center and then sub-letting it to the CRC.
However, the CRC would still find it difficult to find the money to pay for it.
The information is contained in a short letter from CRC chair Ron Hadley to Mayor John Harwood that was made public during the March 15 town council meeting. The letter was in response to a special in-camera meeting held Feb. 18 during which council apparently gave the CRC two lease agreement options to evaluate.
“As expressed in our presentation, Option 2 would be more favorable than Option 1 for CRC, but our projections indicated there would still be a substantial monthly deficit, and thus the proposed arrangement whereby DOC might assume the lease for the building CRC occupies would only partially address our fiscal difficulty,” Hadley wrote.
Hadley went on to say the CRC is engaged in discussions with Thompson Rivers University and Yellowhead Community Services regarding fiscal partnerships/relationships and therefore was unable to present a balanced budget projection at the time of the presentation.
The building the CRC occupies next to Raft River Elementary School belongs to School District 73 and was at one time the administration building for the former School District 26 (North Thompson).
District of Clearwater has expressed an interest in acquiring the former Dutch Lake School.
One of the possible uses for the school put forward would be to present educational programs of the type put on by the CRC. However, that would be several years in the future and it isn’t entirely clear the CRC would be the organization presenting them.
Property matters such as lease arrangements are typically discussed by council during in camera (closed to the public) meetings.
Bring back the powwow
Clearwater Secondary School student Tiffany Preston wants to bring back First Nations powwows. The events were held annually at the school for several years but ended about five years ago.
Cause of ending the events was apparently a shortage of volunteers.
In a recent letter to District of Clearwater council, Preston wrote, “I was hoping the District of Clearwater might consider that we would bring back our powwows.”
“It is important to provide youth and our local First Nations peoples in Clearwater and surrounding areas with opportunities to connect with their culture and history,” she added.
During the March 15 council meeting Mayor John Harwood commented that the powwows were quite successful at the time.
Councilor Brent Buck made a motion to support the concept in principle.