James' Views On Community Concerns

From what I've seen, the biggest concern among Pentictonites as we approach this election is the fiscal competence of our current city council. Along with many members of the this community, I feel that council has made some mistakes that have cost this city an extravagant amount of money, which in turn will cost us future services. Below is a list of reasons why I am running in this election and why I feel I can help to improve our city.

SOEC
The biggest blunder of our current council was the handling of the event centre. Unfortunately, the process was flawed from the start. Delays cost dollars. The lack of proper blueprints has lead to additional costs, costs of which as a community we can not afford. Oversights like the over-sized door would not have happened had the plans been done right from the get go.

The current labour environment is not a new constraint. It was there when the bidding process began and should have been anticipated.

Photo by TonZ
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License

Munson Mountain Land Purchase
This property should be sold or leased. It is not prudent to let it just sit there as an expense without revenues.

Multi-plex -- Indoor Soccer Facility
It's simply not good. The city got involved when it should not have done so, and we now have a complex that is much delayed and apparently, leaking!! Once again things like incomplete diagrams and plans because of bad advice from the current council have plagued what should have been a terrific project. The $150 000 the city thought they were saving by hiring an inexperienced company to provide the roof for the project has now been lost by costly delays.

Affordable Housing
We must encourage affordable housing. I would suggest some sort of tax breaks or deferrals to encourage affordable housing. There has to be a mixture of town homes, single family homes, and apartment style. The city must be a partner in this process. The past council has been too focuesed on high rise luxury condos as a "one-size-fits-all" solution to housing in our community.

Spending
Priorities are needed. We must only spend what we can afford, because we only have a limited amount of money available. Priorities should be the safety, health and wellness of our citizens. We need more infrastructure to encourage active use of our parks, and we can work with community groups to help raise funds for such things. Parks are great, but we need to promote their use. We need things such as better maintained tennis courts and ball diamonds, a return of the covered tennis courts, more basketball courts, walking and biking paths etc. Things that will help us all build an active lifestyle. We should help service groups secure funding from other levels of government, but only if that funding is put to uses that benefit the community.

Photo by striatic
Attribution License

Fire Protection
I understand our current level of staffing for our fire department does not meet current WCB standards. I feel this is unacceptable and a serious infraction of safety standards to our fire department and a safety issue for all the citizens of Penticton.

Open Government
I feel we should reverse, if passed, the current council's attempt to put forth a bylaw allowing the removal of the names of those making and seconding a motion, from the official minutes of meetings. I feel the members of the community need to know where their elected officials stand on all issues.

Contact Me
For thoughts, comments or questions, please call me at 250 4881668, send me an email at jamespalanio@shaw.ca , or leave a comment here and I will do my best to answer your questions.