Thursday, July 21, 2011

The Kitimat Library Referendums

Efforts to get a new library in Kitimat definitely felt like something a corporation might do. The old location was in the Nechako area, pretty close to all but one elementary school and also close to both high schools. The planned new location was downtown, away from all but that one more remote elementary school. Two tactics stood. Out: they held a referendum on the topic every year, thus basically wearing the voters down so that they’d vote for the thing just to get it off the ballots. A cheekier move was to give very young kids helium balloons saying that they wanted a new library. The thing is, a helium balloon could advocate genocide of a third world country and a kid would still accept the balloon because they like helium balloons. Finally (I’m guessing more due to the former than the latter, they got their wish, and Kitimat’s library is now downtown, bigger than before and away from most of the schools (of which there are admittedly fewer of these days).

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