Facing the possible cancellation of a popular Campbell River festival, city council has taken swift action to rid much of Nunns Creek Park of the homeless encampment.
Council heard from representatives of the Campbell River Salmon Festival on Monday. The event includes the World Class Logger Sports and Highland Gathering and is scheduled to take place the first weekend in August.
But organizers say the homeless encampment has pitched tents in the main setup area, contaminated the burling pond, cut up their burling logs for firewood and is making the area unsafe to host competitors, tourists and children.
“We are in a position where most of us are afraid to go into the park. Our offices have been broken into a number of times. Our sea can where we keep our equipment has been broken into so we have to have five ton concrete blocks in front of the doors,” event coordinator Jim Lilburn told council.
The delegation noted there was a two week window for the city to take action otherwise they would have to pull the plug on the festival, which brings in between $1 million and $2 million in economic activity.
“To see our Nunns Creek Park degraded to this point to me is criminal,” Coun. Ron Kerr responded. “Not just the criminality that’s going on down there, but the criminality of allowing this park to degenerate to this level is, to me, it’s shocking.”
Following the festival presentation, city council moved to amend its nuisance bylaw to not allow overnight camping from April to the end of September in almost all of Nunns Creek Park. The exception is a sliver of land in the southeast corner, at the backside of Ironwood Street businesses, as well as the BMX track.
It did the first three readings of the bylaw amendment Monday night and held a special council meeting this morning for formal adoption.
The change in the nuisance bylaw will also allow the city to engage the RCMP in clearing out the encampment areas.
