Robert Miles, the City of Kelowna's long range policy planning manager, in the city's video called: "Council Priority: Vibrant Neighbourhoods."

(ROB MUNRO / iNFOnews.ca)

The City of Kelowna has spent tens of thousands of dollars outsourcing video production over the last few years — many of them featuring Mayor Colin Basran — under a scheme few other municipalities in the province follow.

In 2021, the City paid Distill Media $25,425 to produce and edit many of the videos, often featuring staff explaining issues or what they do. In 2020 it got $48,896 under its Solid Rock Video name. Spending amounts for this year were not available.

The City considers the videos good value, despite the fact they are sourced out beyond its communication department, well outside the norm of other cities we looked at.

“We’ve found that video messages from the mayor and staff subject matter experts are an effective way to expand the reach of the messages to wider audiences,” Tom Wilson, the city’s media relations manager, wrote in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “The visual presentations can be embedded in news releases or social media messages, giving residents more options about the way they want to consume the information (read it, watch it, listen to it).”

But, there are a couple of significant differences between the way Kelowna produces video and what’s done in other B.C. cities. There’s far more work contracted out in Kelowna than elsewhere and the mayor is the messenger in far more Kelowna videos than in other cities, attracting the ire of his main rival for the mayor’s seat this fall.

Most other municipalities create these kinds of videos in house, if they do them at all.

“Our communications team creates most of our video content in-house,” Christy Poirier, manager of communications and grants for the City of Vernon, said in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “I have a long background in broadcast and multi-media production and have been working closely with our other team members to learn video production.”

Penticton does “well over 90%” of their videos in-house while all videos are done in-house in Kamloops and in West Kelowna, with the exception of one recent West Kelowna shoot that was part of a larger FireSmart campaign. That city also bought some drone footage last year that was used in several videos.

“We contract out videos that require editing, splicing and generally higher production for longer videos that are describing something complex, like Imagine Kelowna, the Transportation Master Plan, community Safety response, etc.,” Wilson, from the City of Kelowna, wrote. “We do not own the editing equipment nor the expertise to do these types of videos in an efficient, entertaining and cost-effective way.”

Kelowna has 14 staff members working in its communications department who have shot 20 to 40 videos a year with the mayor for the past two years.

“These are brief messages that we shoot with our own basic video equipment,” Wilson wrote. “They are for topics like recent public safety investments or tourism welcome messages, community groups’ requests for a message from the mayor and messages to mark things like Remembrance Day or Indigenous Peoples Day.”

Some of those, such as community group messages, don’t get posted to social media but, in the past year, the city has posted about 40 videos to its Facebook page.

That’s on par with what many other cities produce.

One big difference is that Basran is featured in about half those videos.

The City of Kelowna Facebook page has dozens of photo images of the mayor and/or titles like: “Mayor Basran – Tourism in Kelowna” that was posted four weeks ago. Before that, there was “Mayor Basran – Canada Day” and “Mayor Basran – Kelowna Pride Week.”

“The mayor is the official spokesperson for Council and the organization, so that’s why he is present in most of them,” Wilson wrote. “He is in about 50% of the videos we do for the organization.”

In many other B.C. cities, a mayor rarely, if ever, has his or her face or name posted to their City’s Facebook page.

One mayor that comes close to Basran in terms of face time is Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps. She gives regular “What’s up at council?” updates every two or more weeks. They last about one minute.

Recently, Kamloops Mayor Ken Christian has been featured in half-a-dozen “Ask the mayor” videos where he answers constituents’ questions. Each segment is one to three minutes.

“They’re specifically focused on Mayor Christian as a reflection of his many years in service, as he has announced that he will not be running again this fall,” Kristen Rodrigue, the city’s communications supervisor, wrote in an email to iNFOnews.ca.

Basran has yet to say if he’s running for re-election this fall but his chief rival and the only declared mayoralty candidate, Tom Dyas, has cried foul.

READ MORE: Tom Dyas wants to fill the cracks in Kelowna’s boom by becoming its next mayor

“After I've made crime and safety a campaign issue, the mayor has put out a City of Kelowna-made video, featuring him, talking about crime - then he shared it to his own pages,” Dyas said in a July 28 news release after an “Investing in Community Safety” video featuring Basran came out.

“He's campaigning using your tax dollars,” Dyas wrote. “We're playing by the rules and running an ethical campaign. If he wants to campaign he should raise money himself, not use your tax dollars. I need your help. I'm competing against the City of Kelowna's money now.”

Wilson said the City of Kelowna paid just over $9,000 to contractors last year on videos involving the mayor.

Dyas may also not have much reason to fear that the videos are boosting Basran’s profile leading up the Oct. 15 municipal election since two-thirds of his videos garnered less than 1,000 views each, with a few under 200. That's on par with the number of views that videos posted by many other cities get.

Six of Basran’s videos did get more than 1,000 views with his “biggest hit” being on tourism. It was posted four weeks ago and got 8,800 views.

In comparison, in the 2018 election, Basran got more than 18,000 votes to about 9,500 for Dyas.

“The top 26 videos we produced (contracted and in-house) had a combined reach of 34,324 viewers to our channels hosting the videos,” Wilson wrote. That’s an average of just over 1,300 views per video. “The cost per impression of videos offers great value when compared to paid advertising.”

READ MORE: Battle over Kelowna golf course hot topic for municipal election

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