Depner lives! Council revives look at retreat plans By Chris Woodall What Municipal Council can kill, it too can bring back to life. Such is the case with the Ross Depner Bear Paw Lodge development property he hoped to turn into a unique corporate retreat. Council quashed his plans, March 3, saying his 12-room lodge and 20 outlying cabins weren’t needed at a time of a flood of hotel rooms. Depner protested that the lodge was a unique facility that was not a hotel in the usual, publicly-accessed sense. At the Monday council meeting, councillors voted 4-1 to bring the idea back to council, expressing sheepish concerns about acting too quickly. "I supported the decision to not allow the development (but) I was rather off the mark and am now disturbed at the way I cast my vote," said councillor Dave Kirk. "It’s rare this thing stayed with me as long as it did. Given a chance to review it again, I would do so." Councillor Kristi Wells also admitted new information had changed her mind, but councillor Ken Melamed stood firm that the site had environmental impacts that he could not ignore. "The location of the sewer right-of-way leaves a bad taste in my mouth," Melamed said for being the lone dissenting vote.
