Municipal police force?

A trip to Whistler is all work and no play for Kelowna Mayor Sharon Shepherd, who is attending the Union of BC Municipalities conference.

The topic of discussion for several days will surround the renewal of an RCMP contract, says Shepherd.

“The indication is that we are going to settle a contract with the RCMP, but a lot of challenges have been with the transparency and accountability in the past contract,” says Shepherd.

Discussion will focus on how to enhance communication and encourage transparency says Shepherd.

For Shepherd, challenges already exist with the current RCMP contract, as the City of Kelowna faces funding increases due to the new RCMP pension plan.

“Our Superintendent is certainly aware that this will impact the number of members we could be hiring. But because the pension plan expectation is to have funding added to it, it could prevent us from being able to add any new members.”

Under the current contract RCMP Superintendent Bill McKinnon is responsible for policing outside of Kelowna, even though the city pays 90 per cent of the Kelowna RCMP costs.

“We want to be sure that our citizens are only paying for the policing we receive and not covering costs for other areas that also have the RCMP as their contractor.”

The mayor says the city of Kelowna will not be looking at anything other than a contract with the RCMP at this time, unless many other communities in the province decide that another police force is viable.

“I know they're looking for a 20 year contract which seems like a very long time. My role right now will be to hear back from the other communities, take the information and have the dialogue within our own city as to what our options and expectations are."

"It's not an easy contract to work through. It's all about the transparency and accountability.”

Another topic of discussion at the conference is climate change.

Mayor Shepherd says she will take advantage of the opportunity to become a mentor to other communities on their climate change challenges.

“We would be willing to help other communities that may not have the expertise or staff to identify what they could do as a community. I ideally would like to work with communities within the Okanagan area, because I think we can provide them information and best practices that have worked.”

The axing of provincial West Nile Virus funding has also buzzed into the conference.

“After our recent experience where the virus has been found in some birds and in one individual in our area, we would really like to have that money brought back again for our communities to use as a preventative measure.”