Governance Petition Gaining Support

Written by Peter McIntyre Wednesday, 18 September 2013 16:40
An organizer of a campaign looking into the issue of amalgamation in Greater Vernon, says they're getting between 75 and 100 new signers each day. Bruce Shepherd from the Greater Vernon Governance Society says people are signing online and through mail-ins. "The whole purpose of this is to get it out there for discussion, get the provincial authorities involved to show us what the options and costs could be, and then let the citizens have a vote on it in November of 2014," Shepherd tells Kiss FM.  Just over 800 people have signed the online petition at www.greatervernongovernance.ca which runs until the end of October. Shepherd, who is a Coldstream resident who works as a financial advisor, says about 56% of those are from Vernon, 34 percent Coldstream, and a combined ten percent from Areas B and C. He says they haven't set a specific target for the petition. "What we've been told by provincial authorities and everybody is that it has to be a significant number, so we're just looking now at how many people voted in the last municipal election and then we'll see. Maybe we'll put a number out there in another week or so."

The petition reads: As a citizen of Greater Vernon, I support a review by local and provincial authorities, to develop a plan to combine our regional governments (City of Vernon, District of Coldstream, Electoral Area B, and Electoral Area C) into a single entity, for the purpose of more efficient use of our local tax dollars.