Photo: TNRD

Residents in Chery Creek are opposing the format of a referendum to decide if fire service should be extended to their rural area.

The Thompson-Nicola Regional District board of directors rejected a petition from Cherry Creek residents opposing a referendum to expand fire services to their area after no director motioned to alter the process at its last meeting.

The regional district is now moving ahead with the June 21 referendum asking neighbouring Cherry Creek and Tobiano residents of Area J (Copper Desert Country) to allow them to borrow funding to build a $3 million firehall on Gardi Road and purchase two firetrucks.

The referendum, if passed, would establish a new fire protection service area that includes 648 properties between both communities. Currently only Tobiano has fire service, while Cherry Creek does not.

Rhonda Kopp, who launched the petition, said the referendum is unfair and biased against Cherry Creek because they are being lumped in with Tobiano, which outnumbers them 382 properties to 266.

According to Kopp, the vote is set up in such a way that even if all Cherry Creek residents voted against the service, they could still be outvoted by Tobiano and forced to accept paying for a firehall they do not want.

Kopp said her petition accumulated 275 signatures from 149 different homes in Cherry Creek and suggests a pair of alternatives to the upcoming referendum.

At Thursday’s meeting Kopp took questions from board directors, who received her petition and a TNRD staff report addressing it, but no director made a motion to alter or delay the upcoming referendum, ultimately defeating the petition.

Speaking to Castanet Kamloops following the meeting, Kopp and some of her fellow residents expressed their frustration with the referendum moving ahead.

“It’s not unexpected, unfortunately,” Kopp told Castanet Kamloops about the result of the board meeting. “There's a lot of people in Cherry Creek who are very angry, like at least all the people that we got signatures from.”

Kopp said Cherry Creek is its own, unique community that should decide what it wants for itself. She also said neighbours tend to rely on each other for fire protection.

Cherry Creek residents who spoke to Castanet after the meeting noted concerns with the fire service not being able to navigate long driveways and terrain in Cherry Creek in time to save homes of those who live more than a few kilometres away from the proposed firehall, which would be an on-call station.

“We’re paying for a fire service that doesn't even have a chance of saving our house and our all our belongings,” Kopp said, noting homes are spread far apart in Cherry Creek whereas they’re close together on residential streets in Tobiano.

As for what comes next for petitioners, Kopp said she’s sent a letter to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs explaining their situation.

Alternatives not ideal

Kopp’s petition suggested two alternatives to June’s referendum — conduct a survey of just Cherry Creek residents to find out if the majority want fire service at all, or conduct two referendums between the communities to decide on firehalls in each area.

A staff report to the board from TNRD general manager of operations Jamie Vieira, said neither alternative is recommended.

Vieira’s report said a separate Cherry Creek fire department isn’t economically or operationally feasible, and two-step public assent petition followed by a possible referendum on borrowing isn’t recommended because it could create voter fatigue and there’s a chance the initial petition for service succeeds, but the borrowing vote fails.

During Thursday’s meeting Kamloops councillor Bill Sarai told Kopp it was important to point out that while Tobiano residents may outnumber those in Cherry Creek, will pay more for the service as their assessed home values are higher.

Vieira told the board the average assessed home value between the two communities is $800,000, which makes for about $960 a year for the fire protection service, while for Cherry Creek alone the average assessed home is valued at $500,000 which works out to $600 a year for the service.

Kopp said suggested many Cherry Creek residents cannot afford the tax increase and may end up selling their properties to developers.

Petitioners suggest different service level

Sarai also told Kopp it would be more of a financial burden for Cherry Creek to fund their own fire department, to which Kopp said residents would like to consider an alternative service level.

Kopp said a number of Cherry Creek residents are looking into the possibility of setting up a Community Emergency Response Organization to apply to the province’s Cooperative Community Wildfire Response program for funding. She also said they want to promote FireSmarting in their community.

“It doesn’t have to be a $3 million firehall,” she told the board.

Area L (Grasslands) director Dough Haughton told Kopp he hopes Cherry Creek residents “take a long hard look at the opportunity of fire service.”

“I don’t want to see you folks miss an opportunity,” Haughton said. “I’d love to see you covered with proper fire protection, as we're going through now in Monte Creek and Pritchard, trying to get those covered at an affordable rate.”

According to the TNRD, a fire service referendum was supposed to be held in 2022 for Cherry Creek residents alone, however, B.C.’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs intervened, saying the TNRD could not have two separate fire protection service areas fund a single fire department.

TNRD chief administrative officer Scott Hildebrand told Castanet the referendum is only being done the way it is because the province requires it, and noted the vote is based on all residents of legal voting age, not just property owners.