West Kelowna

The four member municipalities of the Intermunicipal Services Advisory Board - Kelowna, West Kelowna, Vernon and Penticton - are continuing their work on common municipal issues including transit governance, gas tax funding tier consideration and Provincial services.

The Mayors of the four municipalities met on January 20, 2012 and discussed the directions to take for 2012.

This was the first meeting for two newly-elected Mayors, Kelowna Mayor Walter Gray and Vernon Mayor Robert Sawatzky. Returning to the Intermunicipal Services Advisory Board table were West Kelowna Mayor Doug Findlater and Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton.

“I was very pleased to see that with two new member mayors on the board, the intent of our partnership is intact and we can seamlessly get on with working on our mutual concerns,” says Mayor Doug Findlater. 

“On many issues, our message is made stronger with one voice and pooling our resources is extremely beneficial.”

During this meeting, the group discussed transit governance. 

All municipalities are committed to investigating options for the delivery of this important public service and are committed to establishing the most effective and cost-efficient system in the Okanagan.

The group agreed to continue to see that Okanagan municipalities are considered for Tier 1 Gas Tax funding for future Regionally Significant Project funding allocations through the Canada-BC-UBCM Gas Tax Agreement.

Currently, municipalities in the Regional District of Central Okanagan are considered for Tier 2 funding, which provides funding for regional, not local, projects.

The Mayors also discussed their concerns with apparent downloading of costs from the Province, with the most recent issues being stream protection and beach water quality testing.

Ongoing concerns that impact all member municipalities were also discussed, including forest fire fuel mitigation funding, 

Okanagan Lake and transportation issues and these topics will continue to be brought to the table in 2012.