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There’s an entire class of people whose interests are not meaningfully represented by Kelowna City Council. Our council majority is comfortable, well-connected, and far removed from life on the ground.
Imagine council’s priorities around housing if we had more long-term renters than landlords at the table. How different a rezoning application might go if determining appropriate land use was up to hard-working folks who put affordability first. If the councillors carefully reviewing the impacts of pricing & policy changes to Kelowna Regional Transit routinely got to and from city hall by bus. The perspectives on our council matter, because council’s decisions are felt in our day-to-day lives.
And on the flipside, inaction by council is also felt. Aesthetically pleasing photo ops may prop up the city’s tourist-attracting prestige, but our budgets consistently sideline essentials: the crumbling sidewalks & curb cuts in Rutland, the numerous bus stops throughout town without benches, the absence of accessible 24/7 public washrooms in high foot traffic areas. These aren’t sexy showpieces like a north entry welcome sign or a dog park, but gaping holes in infrastructure & services hurt us every day. They impair our ability to do what we need to do when we need to do it. And when residents can’t go about their business, it’s bad for our quality of life and it’s bad for our economy.
Also, if there’s one thing we absolutely can afford? Vision. Council has the power to take the initiative and direct city staff. Councillors could spearhead pilots like a community-led street tree stewardship program, or open the way for local electoral reform to bring in a ward system, or motion for greater transparency by publishing the city’s real estate holdings in the public record.
Fresh ideas rely on independent, critical thinkers, but we have a political organization wading into this election that seeks to take independence & critical thinking out of the deal. A group identifying themselves as the Conservative Electors Association will be running a slate of candidates in Kelowna, all bearing the party name of big-c “Conservative” on the ballot despite the Conservative Electors Association having no formal affiliation with any existing conservative political party. We don’t actually know what we’re getting, and this batch of whipped candidates will have signed on to a platform that fails to meet the moment.
Redirecting funding away from already under-resourced public services like libraries to pay for property tax cuts, a public safety plan that completely ignores cost-effective evidence-based forward thinking approaches like promoting housing stability & poverty reduction, instead focusing only on injecting steroids into the RCMP budget for an ever-increasing expansion of surveillance & police presence. We’re talking a plan that erodes our city’s ability to deliver services to us, the residents, and continues to kick the can that is the homelessness crisis down the road with no end in sight. Their visionless agenda isn’t fiscally responsible nor does it invest in our community’s future, it’s only about winning power.
On October 17th, vote for the clear & independent thinkers prepared to do the hard work. We can have accountable, forward-thinking representation for the everyday people who keep Kelowna going.
My name is Trevor McAleese, and I’m here to show you what it looks like when a Kelowna City Councillor has your back.