MoveKelownaForward Won't Run

Are my eyes and ears deceiving me? John Zeger and his sidekick Rick Shea have teamed up with Andy Thompson to create ASK. What is ASK do you inquire? I believe it stands for Action for Segregating Kelowna, but I might be wrong. ASK went and released their platform for running as a slate in the upcoming election. Why are they running as a slate? I guess they realize that it would be difficult for any one of them to make it on council by themselves.

That aside, this is a very serious matter and one that needs to be looked at closely. I was there at the recent CRCP meeting where ASK was announced by Mr. Zeger, Mr. Shea, and Mr. Thompson.

ASK wants approved development to benefit the community, added infrastructure, affordable housing, more public participation in the planning process, economic development to raise average incomes, and to sustain the standard of living for future generations. Wow. This is a far cry from the urban sprawl and population cap that the CRCP ranted and raved to everyone before. It must be an election – promises, promises. But wait – if you read on, you will find that those raving ideals are still strong. Further in the platform you will see the true CRCP coming out in ASK as they want to limit the amount of people that come into this city and want to discuss an “ultimate population size” for Kelowna.

ASK says that they want all of these great ideas like affordable housing and benefits to the community. These are the types of pro-progress reasons why we at MoveKelownaForward.com created our organization in the first place. Pro-progress is what Kelowna needs and pro-progress is what present council is offering.

MoveKelownaForward.com is not going to be running in the upcoming election. We feel it better to be outside the political mainstream to get our word across. Running for council where financial funding is solicited can in turn make it look like a conflict of interest. Contrary to comments I’ve heard we have not accepted any financial monies at MoveKelownaForward.com.

Finally, ASK wishes to create a new 100 year plan for Kelowna. How is this going to be possible when Mr. Zeger has only lived in Kelowna for a couple of years? Does ASK really know what is good for Kelowna? With that in mind, I would like to close with something Mr. Zeger mentioned at his recent meeting. Mr. Zeger stated that because he hasn’t lived here long enough he is “taking the word of other people” who live here and he has talked to “people who are leaving” in order to make his decisions on Kelowna. Do you want someone like this running your city?

Get out there and make your vote count on Election Day – vote for pro-progress councillors who care about the proper way to embrace the inevitable growth of our beautiful city.

Tony D’Andrea
MoveKelownaForward.com