AAP and the democratic deficit

[Urbane]

The Alternative Approval Process has yielded temporary failure at least for West Kelowna council's efforts to build a city hall in the Westbank neighbourhood. Mayor Findlater has commented that council put a lot of work (three years) into the proposal. What mandate did council have. A poster on another thread listed the city's Top 10 priorities from a public document: city hall was not on it. Mayor Findlater also referred to Westbank as West Kelowna's "downtown". Where did that come from. What support or endorsation for Westbank as our downtown has been given by electors? None that I know of. Maybe we should adopt Westbank as "downtown". But if it is shoved down our throats or brought in through a back door, expect lots of resistance.

Westbank Centre certainly looks like a "downtown." What other area(s) of the municipality are you thinking of as downtown?

[occasional thoughts]

Urbane, my friend, I repeat, we as a city have never chosen or endorsed a downtown. With its tawdry buildings, the couplet running down the middle of it, pawn shops and low-class cafes, Westbank doesn't look like a city centre or a city in waiting to me. And if it is a centre, that centre is not in the middle of what should be agricultural land but for finagling by our former MLA three blocks north where council wanted to build "city hall". To council, downtown WK is an empty field and a former orchard (to my recollection).

Under old regional district plans that I saw, Westbank was one of a number of town centres within the Central Okanagan Regional district with Kelowna having the only city or regional centre.

[GordonH]

Winfield is to District of Lake Country as Westbank is to District of West Kelowna

Hows that

[Urbane]

Winfield is to District of Lake Country as Westbank is to District of West Kelowna

Hows that

That works for me. There could certainly be more than one downtown. Where's downtown Kelowna? Well, there's the one we all think of but there's also a downtown area(s) in Rutland, in the Mission, and elsewhere. These areas already exist though and I'm just not seeing other downtown areas in West Kelowna. It would be terrific if other downtowns pop up of course but with Westbank Centre already in place and WFN taking over much of the business sector it's a bit hard to envision more downtowns.

Unfortunately, most of the things that I (and many others) said would happen if we incorporated have been happening. The old north south battle is still alive with some in each area automatically opposed (or so it seems anyway) to any significant tax money that might be spent in the other area. I voted against incorporation but my side lost and I realize that we do in fact need a city hall. I don't care if it's built on Elliott Road or elsewhere but there is one piece of very good news in all this: When we look at this "problem" and then look around the world it should remind us how fortunate we really are.

I would have been fine if we had joined Kelowna (my preference) but I'm fine with us being the City of West Kelowna. It seems to be working out pretty well and that's to the credit of our council. I'm fine with the name West Kelowna and I'm fine with wherever the new city hall is built. Council should have voted the way Findlater and Neis did, against using the AAP, and the discussion that we'll be having over the coming months SHOULD be a healthy one. I'm not overly optimistic about that but whatever the result at least the people will have spoken. Hopefully once that happens there will be some degree of acceptance and we will all be able to put these issues into perspective.

[Static]

West Kelowna has a downtown?

[occasional thoughts]

Static: Exactly (lol).

To be charitable rather than pointy-headed, I could concede that conceptually Winfield is to Lake Country as Westbank is to West Kelowna, but Winfield has some quality. Westbank is a tawdry little dump. The real question is whether Westbank is the proper and logical place to establish a downtown. Maybe, but I'm not convinced, and I'm personally not going to accept that decision being shoved down my throat by councillors pandering to the rabble for losing the naming referendum.

[dieseluphammerdown]

Static: Exactly (lol).

To be charitable rather than pointy-headed, I could concede that conceptually Winfield is to Lake Country as Westbank is to West Kelowna, but Winfield has some quality. Westbank is a tawdry little dump. The real question is whether Westbank is the proper and logical place to establish a downtown. Maybe, but I'm not convinced, and I'm personally not going to accept that decision being shoved down my throat by councillors pandering to the rabble for losing the naming referendum.

Yes like west Kelowna was a good choice for a name. Sounds like a cousin name or wanna be name.
Probably the wanna be people who had to settle buying in lakeview height area.!
The west side of the lake is not Kelowna not matter how hard some want it to be.!

[GordonH]

Static: Exactly (lol).

To be charitable rather than pointy-headed, I could concede that conceptually Winfield is to Lake Country as Westbank is to West Kelowna, but Winfield has some quality. Westbank is a tawdry little dump. The real question is whether Westbank is the proper and logical place to establish a downtown. Maybe, but I'm not convinced, and I'm personally not going to accept that decision being shoved down my throat by councillors pandering to the rabble for losing the naming referendum.

Well, here are your choices:
West Kelowna Estates
West Kelowna Business Park
Lakeview Heights
South Boucherie
Shannon Lake
Smith Creek
Westbank
Goats Hill/Gellatly
Glenrosa

You name your downtown

[treeman97]

Shame on the councillors who thought to SAVE the taxpayers of West Kelowna the cost of a referendum.

[voice of reason]

downtown is usually where the businesses and banks are.the downtown area of westbank is old and crappy but it is the only are that makes sense. the rest of west kelowna is all residential and industrial or else it is reserve land.we need a city hall.it is pretty ghetto having a bunch of portable trailers in the parking lot of a hockey arena for a city hall.

[occasional thoughts]

I like the basic concept of how Vancouver has evolved. It has a downtown that has grown up around the historical area where Vancouver first developed, but its city hall is elsewhere and reasonably within the centre of the city. West Kelowna stretches from Casa Loma in the far east to Upper Glenrosa in the far west. If business people, merchants and retailers want to put their enterprises towards the west end of that stretch, that's their call, but the City of West Kelowna should endeavour to put its city hall more in the middle. IMHO of course.

[Atomoa]

it is pretty ghetto having a bunch of portable trailers in the parking lot of a hockey arena for a city hall.

Instead of joining with Kelowna and taking advantage of a already built municipality infrastructure and taking advantage of pooling of the resources, everyone in West Kelowna gets to pay for a new city hall and re-create every job position and their associated support staff.

All that just so you could have the word "West™" infront of the city name and feed into local tribalism. Your taxes are going up, for less services.

This generation in West Kelowna has to go without in order to provide the necessary infrastructure (let alone pay for the services - that comes later) to have a separate city.

Instead of splitting the cab fare, you took your own private car home - and you had to buy the car first!

[occasional thoughts]

Thank god we voted for incorporation. The Kelowna choice at the time was a hostile takeover, not an amalgamation or friendly partnership. Kelowna's exorbitant taxes would have applied, the Kelowna political establishment would have overwhelmed our electors, Westside employees (fire, et al) would have been fired while Kelowna seniority lists would have ruled, the Kelowna Rockets would have blocked the move into Royal LePage Place of BCHL junior hockey, and on and on. Get real, it was Kelowna tribalism trying to take over West Kelowna tribalism, to use your analogy, and we wanted our own to rule.

[Poindexter]

West Kelowna is a bedroom community, spending more money on revitalizing downtown or a fancy new city hall wont change that.

[Urbane]

Thank god we voted for incorporation. The Kelowna choice at the time was a hostile takeover, not an amalgamation or friendly partnership. Kelowna's exorbitant taxes would have applied, the Kelowna political establishment would have overwhelmed our electors, Westside employees (fire, et al) would have been fired while Kelowna seniority lists would have ruled, the Kelowna Rockets would have blocked the move into Royal LePage Place of BCHL junior hockey, and on and on. Get real, it was Kelowna tribalism trying to take over West Kelowna tribalism, to use your analogy, and we wanted our own to rule.

Did you really find Kelowna to be hostile? Not friendly? I remember Mayor Sharon Shepherd telling us that the decision was ours, that she would welcome us to Kelowna if we chose to join, but I don't recall her twisting our arm. I remember some people criticizing her for not being more assertive on the issue. Do you honestly think that the seniority lists wouldn't have merged? Do you really think that the City of Kelowna would have deliberately tried to anger everyone on the westside with mass firings over here? I don't.

The incorporation/amalgamation issue was settled long ago but over the past few years I've noticed an interesting phenomenon. I've talked to some who voted in favour of amalgamation who are generally satisfied with the way our city has been operated and I've also talked to some who voted in favour of incorporation who feel that they're not being listened to and who are unhappy with the new city. Politics and irony just go hand in hand I guess.

It's so true what Poindexter said (West Kelowna is a bedroom community, spending more money on revitalizing downtown or a fancy new city hall wont change that.) It's a great place to live but maybe we shouldn't be spending too much time or money on trying to create a new definable downtown area (or areas) and instead we should concentrate on making our bedroom community more livable. Part of that process means doing what the city is doing with Westbank Centre. You don't even have to accept Westbank Centre as downtown to agree with that.