Valley governance moving forward

Castanet Feb 28
The committee studying possible area-wide governance options in the Okanagan Similkameen is moving forward and forming a focus in its work. It’s planning to complete a report for the Minister of Community Services by March 31st. At its meeting in Vernon Wednesday, the Regional Governance Study Working Committee received the results from consultations with all local governments in the North, Central and South Okanagan Similkameen regional districts. Consultant Allan Neilsen-Welch presented a report based on the sessions that were held during the past three weeks. The consultation process has found the most support from elected local government officials for a strong inter-regional authority or authorities within the governance study area. Neilsen-Welch says there was little support from municipal and regional district politicians for a single area-wide regional district model. His report also says local elected officials want more information and details regarding the proposed governance model options. In particular, they’d like specifics on the cost benefits for each option as well as voter representation and any voting structure.

Working Committee Vice-Chair Jerry Oglow, who chairs the Regional District of North Okanagan welcomed the consultant’s report. It shows some common themes and focus developing on the part of local elected officials throughout the Okanagan Similkameen as the discussion continues regarding possible region-wide governance options. More than 120 elected officials representing municipal councils and regional district boards in the Okanagan Similkameen have been invited to a ‘Council of Councils’ meeting. At the session in Kelowna on March 7th they’ll be asked to provide the Working Committee with feedback on the various governance options that are under consideration. This information will be used by the Working Committee to guide its recommendations in a report to the Minister of Community Services by the end of March. A link to the consultants report will be available in the next few days on the Okanagan Similkameen Regional Governance Working Committee website: www.valleygovern.ca. Residents may also go there to view information from past committee meetings and for upcoming ones. A direct email contact form is also available online for residents to complete, so that their thoughts, ideas and suggestions can be considered by the Governance committee. After the March 7th ‘Council of Councils’ session, the next regular Regional Governance Study Working Committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, March 19th at 1:00 pm at the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen office, 101 Martin Street in Penticton. The meeting will be open for residents to view the proceedings.
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Don Quixote Note: Along with about 5 media types,and a handful of interested politicians mostly from NORD, I endured 2 hours of the gathering of the chosen 12 and their hired consultants as they received the hired gun's report, reviewed it and then tried to hammer out an agenda for their following meeting. Mercifully the Noon lunch hour intervened and my ride home desired to exit and so we left as the assembled Politicos hunkered down to barley soup and sandwiches. The chosen 12 actually was reduced to the heavenly 11 as Chairman Robeert Hobson of Kelowna was apaprently working hard in Malibu. The phrase that caught my ear was "cross fertilization of ideas". I know little about farming, but it always has been my belief that throwing different kinds of shit together on the same field doesn't necessary mean a bumper robust crop, it might just mean you wind up with a big pile of shit that has to be cleaned up.

These guys were still arguing about what the true purpose of the super regional governance committee was, what the 'leader' meant with her original decision to assemble and mobilize the chosen 12 (originally the Divine 9), and whether the electoral areas should be discussed in the open or their fate merely left to the capricious whims of the revered leader Minister Ida Chong.

To me it appears that we have three separate regional districts with different reasons for being told to come to the table by the leader. The nucleus is the Central Regional District (CORD) who has lost a good portion of their 'raison d'etre' when the Westbank opted to become a municipality and now have a surplus of bureacrabs and anointed politicians that must find new homes in which to work or rule. On the north end is NORD which is unraveling and is a dysfunctional version of its original being as it blindly stumbles through governance and personality issues and was ordered to the table by the provincial government. On the South end of the table is the South Okanagan Similkameen regional district that appears to be working quite well and would like to be left alone but has been forced to endure this traveling circus probably in the hope that its functionality will serve as an example and will rub off on its Northern Cousins.

The next meeting tentatively called the 'council of council' (a ripoff of the loya Jarga in Afghanistan) will be comprised of 120 elected officials representing municipal councils and regional district boards will convene in Kelowna (Mecca?) on March 7. The Provincial Government has received special dispensation to suspend certain sections of the Kyoto protocol that prevents the large creation of artificially created hot air that contributes to global warming. The public is welcome but watching gramma's home movies might be a more entertaining choice.