Two important milestones reached last week
The Okanagan Correctional Centre is a giant step closer to reality following two important milestones reached last week.
First, an agreement was signed between the provincial government and the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) that will allow the $240-million project to go ahead in the Senkulmen Business Park on OIB land.
Second, three construction companies were short-listed, moving the construction project to its final stage in the competitive selection process.
The winning contract is expected to be awarded next March or April with construction to begin immediately.
This correctional facility, scheduled to open in the fall of 2016, is one of the largest provincial projects in the South Okanagan in decades.
Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells compares its impact to that of the irrigation ditch built here in the 1930s.
Ironically, there was no great eagerness on the part of some communities in the area to host this facility.
Penticton voted against it in a plebiscite. Other communities also gave it a pass.
Some of this concern may have been based on irrational fears that living next to a prison population poses a security risk to neighbourhoods nearby.
This ignores the experience of communities elsewhere in Canada that host prison facilities without such problems.
The entrepreneurial leadership of the OIB, however, saw the opportunity this facility could provide and jumped at the chance to host it.
The facility will provide both short and long-term employment to band members, as well as employment and numerous other economic spinoffs to the broader community.