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Salmon Arm council OKs plan to provide porta-potty in park

Outdoor school principal asks for permission to put portable toilet in Klahani Park during winter
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Request to put a porta-potty at Salmon Arm’s Klahani Park for students is approved by city council. (File photo)

Students at Salmon Arm’s outdoor school will not have to test their bladders during outings to Klahani Park this winter.

Jared King, principal of South Canoe Elementary and its Outdoor Learning Program, wrote to city council explaining that the school uses Klahani Park a lot as it’s only a couple hundred metres from the school.

“With winter fast-approaching, and not wanting to stop using Klahani Park as a place for learning, we would like to ask for permission to have a Porta-Potty installed there for the winter months. During the warmer months we are able to use the washrooms at Klahani which is great, especially for our smaller students. However, during the winter months there is no option for washroom use and it can be very difficult for our younger students to ‘hold it’,” he wrote.

King said the school’s “amazing” parent advisory council would cover the costs of placing and maintaining the portable washroom while it’s at the park. He said the school would accept any feedback regarding where the portable toilet should be placed.

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At the Oct. 26 city council meeting, Coun. Sylvia Lindgren said she worked at the school as an education assistant the year before last and she saw how much the students used the park.

“Multiple times a week there was one class or another there.”

She also noted a child can require a bathroom “right now.”

City staff said they’re fine with the porta-potty plan, with the school being responsible for managing and pumping.

Lindgren made a motion that the school, at its own cost and responsibility, provides a porta-potty at Klahani Park, in consultation with city staff. The motion passed unanimously.



marthawickett@saobserver.net
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Martha Wickett

About the Author: Martha Wickett

came to Salmon Arm in May of 2004 to work at the Observer. I was looking for a change from the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland, where I had spent more than a decade working in community newspapers.
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