Penticton city council has given the green light to Spectra Venue Management's continued operation of the South Okanagan Events Centre.

(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON - City council had no problems deciding who should run the South Okanagan Events Centre.

Council unanimously voted to extend the operation and management agreement for Spectra Venue Management at a council meeting yesterday, June 5.

Third-party contractor Jonathan Huggett told council Spectra was the best bet for the continued successful operation of the facility.

Huggett said when the company took over operation of the events centre in 2014 the facility hosted 163 events. Last year there were 245 events.

“The deficit is down eight per cent. The facility has a $35 million total economic impact. It’s hard to find anyone doing better than that,” Huggett told council, noting as a consultant he wasn’t used to saying "things are going well.”

Huggett said the option of running a competition for the contract would be “bogus,” as the city had run a competition in 2013 that attracted only three responses. Huggett suggested challenges with the other bidders at the time included a lack of understanding of the Penticton market, ties that are too close to the Kelowna market and a lack of marketing power due to the prospective operators' lack of expertise beyond the Alberta border.

“You’ve been down that road before, you know what the answer is going to be,” Huggett said.

The option to use of municipal staff to run the facility was also rejected by Huggett who said they wouldn’t have the knowledge or resources needed to operate the venue.

Coun. Judy Sentes said it was “delightful” to hear Huggett give the operation such high marks, endorsing staff’s recommendation to extend the contract for an additional two, five-year periods.

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Coun. Campbell Watt said.

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