Council eyes Silver Star meeting

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star Published: September 25, 2008

Vernon council wants to discuss governance issues at Silver Star, but some residents in that community are questioning the city’s motives. Council wants to meet with Silver Star Mountain Resort and the Silver Star Property Owners Association to go over a governance study that was done a couple of years ago. “Silver Star and its economic well-being are very important to the Greater Vernon area,” said Coun. Barry Beardsell. Beardsell recently got a full copy of the study from the Ministry of Community Services after two years of freedom of information requests. “The study was just shelved and hidden,” said Beardsell, adding that the study’s recommendation was that Silver Star should join Vernon. But the president of the Silver Star Property Owners Association disagrees with that interpretation of the report. “It (joining city) was an option but it’s not what the report suggested. The recommendation to have a governance committee with the regional district,” said Ted Pleavin, who has had a copy of the study for a few years. “We are willing to sit down with them (city) but we arranged a meeting before and only the mayor showed up.” Pleavin believes council is only pressing the issue now because it wants to annex Silver Star, whereas his group prefers establishing a municipality.

The North Okanagan Regional District’s Silver Star advisory committee will likely be disbanded because most of its functions are being handled by other aspects of NORD. “They’ve stripped everything off the committee. There’s nothing left to do,” said Pleavin, who is committee chairman. “They’ve made the committee ineffective so why do we bother?” The most recent committee meeting only had one item on the agenda. “The current structure is completely useless,” said Coun. Pat Cochrane, Vernon’s representative. Stan Field, BX-Silver Star director, is suggesting that NORD meet twice a year with the property owners association and Silver Star Mountain Resort to discuss issues of concern. And Field disagrees that Silver Star residents are losing direct participation in matters involving their community. “It’s no different than other communities in the regional district. Everyone is on an equal footing,” he said.“We are not taking anything away from the resort if we have semi-annual meetings.”