Photo: Wayne Moore - Castanet File Photo

Is Premier Christy Clark just days away from announcing West Kelowna as B.C.'s newest city?

UPDATE FRIDAY A.M.

A news conference has been scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Friday at the West Kelowna municipal office.

Premier Christy Clark and Mayor Doug Findlater will both be in attendance. At that time it is expected Clark will make the announcement officially designating West Kelowna as a city.

Could Westside Daze be the backdrop for the much-anticipated announcement that West Kelowna has officially become a city?

West Kelowna Mayor Doug Findlater hinted an announcement is imminent, but prefaced that by saying it's not his announcement to make.

"Sorry, I have to be coy about that, but the province has to put the word out on those things," said Findlater.

"It's not mine to announce, but I'd be on the lookout for announcements. I think you will probably realize that one in a day."

Premier Christy Clark, MLA for the Westside-Kelowna riding, is scheduled to be in town this weekend. She will take part in the Westside Daze parade Saturday morning and will presumably be part of the festival's opening ceremonies.

If and when the municipality gains city status, it will use “westkelownacity.ca” as its new website domain.

Council endorsed the domain name earlier this week.

Meanwhile, a request to Telus and the Yellow Pages Group to separate West Kelowna phone numbers from those in Kelowna has been denied.

That information was passed on to council this week as well.

Officials within the district had been in discussions with Telus since 2011 to get the municipality recognized as a separate entity.

Following a meeting between Telus and the Yellow Pages group, the municipality was given the news last month.

The decision was twofold:

• The telephone directory is set up by telephone exchange. The industry functions on this basis (exchanges) and, therefore, the District's request would require a change to how the industry functions and isn't something that can be accommodated by Yellow Pages Group.
• The break out of Lake Country's listings happened years ago when Telus did own the book and was a one off for which Telus made the changes; this change can't be duplicated today.

Findlater said the municipality will continue to talk with Telus to see what other solutions may be attainable.

"They may make a notation for names with a WK or something like that just to make it distinctive. But, really it's status quo," said Findlater.

Just how long this is an issue and how long phone books are relevant still remains to be seen.