The closure of the Pemberton Visitor Centre has triggered a minor back-and-forth between the partners involved in its funding and operation.
After Pique reported Pemberton’s visitor centre would close permanently this month and the sani-dump would shut down at the same location, Adam Adams, with the Pemberton & District Chamber of Commerce, submitted a letter requesting Mayor Mike Richman retract statements published in Pique Aug. 26.
In a letter submitted to council and included on the Sept. 10 agenda, Adams and the Chamber argued the mayor’s comments amounted to “misinformation.”
In case you missed it, when the news first broke on Facebook, Pique reported that Richman said he was unaware of its imminent closure, based on statements he gave.
Tourism Pemberton will take over the visitor centre at a new, yet-undecided location, but the sani-dump has yet to find a new home, leaving vacationers without an effective solution moving forward.
Adams asserted in his letter that he and executive director, Ariane Larouche, met with councillor Katrina Nightingale for a separate issue and informed her “that once we knew when the student employees had to go back to school is when we would be closing for the last time. It was communicated that the sani-dump would have to be closed at the same time, as there are consistent issues with the station, and it needs to be monitored.”
It is asserted the Village of Pemberton’s (VOP) chief administrative officer, Elizabeth Tracy, received an email Aug. 9, informing her the last day of operations for the sani-dump and the visitor centre was Sept. 1, 2024, and that the village has known “as early as October of 2023.”
For their part, Adams wrote that the Chamber does “acknowledge that word to the public could have gone out sooner regarding the status of both the Visitor Centre and the sani-dump, and that is a reputational risk we will bear as an organization.”
That said, he stressed the Chamber clearly communicated in a timely manner the centre and sani-dump were closing imminently, and was also upfront with Destination BC and Tourism Pemberton on the matter.
“We believe the Mayor’s comments to be incorrect and harmful to the reputation of the Pemberton & District Chamber of Commerce. As such, we are requesting that the Mayor retract his statement to the Pique regarding when the Village was informed of these events. We feel this is an adequate remediation to this situation,” Adams wrote, with bold lettering regarding the request for retraction.
Richman responded to the letter with his experience. He said he was given a one-hour deadline before Pique published the story, and as he was working, he did not have time to reply. Subsequently, he replied to the reporter’s questions for the article in a text message.
“I answered the question directly in a text message that I didn't know was going to be entirely quoted. I didn't have the opportunity to give backstory,” he said regarding his response.
Richman went on to say there has been communication from Adams that staff received stating it would be difficult to keep employees on at the visitor centre until the end of September.
“To be 100-per-cent clear, there was an email that Mr. Adams sent to I believe Destination BC, somewhere in early July, and one of our staff is cc’ed, informing of some of the struggles regarding staff and pressures to vacate the premises at a certain point and that that might result in an early closure,” he said.
“I don't feel the need to retract my comments but to clarify because, honestly, when I responded to the call, I wasn't aware.”
He stressed there was no malice intended by his comments, but the incident shows there has been a breakdown in communication between various stakeholders.
“There was certainly no malice or finger-pointing meant. But what it all boils down to, to me, is two things. No. 1, the tourism info booth and the sani-dump are important assets for our community, for our business community, for the tourism industry and for the environment, so people aren't dumping their waste in the bush,” Richman said.
“The Chamber does super important work for our business community, and I have respect for that work. And what this kind of indicates to me is that we have a gap in communication somewhere that we need to look at, perhaps at a board-to-council level, perhaps at a staff-to-staff level, perhaps both.”
