Expanding childcare with a new building at Ranger Park was on the docket at last night’s (Tuesday) Smithers Town Council meeting.
This included a recap on an information session held on February 16th where residents further expressed the need for more childcare in the community.
One motion that night was to approve designating a portion of the park to the new building – pending grant approval.
An exact location for the building would be chosen later.
Councilor Frank Wray expressed continued opposition to having the building be at Ranger Park, saying “I don’t think we can take statistics saying 81 percent of people are in favour of it because what people tend to do is solve their immediate problems.”
“What we’re trying to do here is look forward for the whole community and when we start carving up parks, when those children grow up and there’s nowhere to go relax in a park, they’re not going to want to stay here,” he added.
During voting, Councilor Wray was the lone opposer.
After the decision was made, he proposed the town look into a way so future “non-park developments” couldn’t go through at Ranger Park without a referendum.
Council accepted this motion and passed voting with no opposition.