Few council candidates make the Liveable Kelowna cut | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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Few council candidates make the Liveable Kelowna cut

Image Credit: Submitted/City of Kelowna

A survey focused largely on environment and “community representation” in Kelowna garnered responses from 26 of the 37 candidates for local office in the Oct. 15 municipal election.

Only six – and no mayoralty candidates – made the cut.

“The six endorsed candidates display leadership, competency, and a commitment to fully understand the issues brought to council and to listen to community input, whereas most incumbents have failed to make the case as to why they deserve another term,” Liveable Kelowna said in the news release.

In fact, four of the six incumbents running for re-election did not respond. Only Coun. Loyal Wooldridge was endorsed. Coun. Charlie Hodge also responded.

The other five who were endorsed are Bal Grewal, Davis Kyle, Gord Lovegrove, Elaine McMurray and Peter Truch.

READ MORE: What can a local politician actually do about crime?

Four of the five mayoralty candidates did respond, including Mayor Colin Basran, Tom Dyas, Glendon Charles Smedley and Silverado Socrates. David Habib did not respond. None made the cut.

“Liveable Kelowna is a non-partisan group formed with a goal to inject new life into Kelowna’s council by electing stronger voices committed to community leadership and representation,” the press release says. “The current Mayor and Council were elected in 2018 with a clear mandate: Guide the city through its next phase of growth in the cohesive and collaborative way envisioned by Imagine Kelowna. They failed to do this. Instead, the community’s vision for growth was rejected, as was the mandate to build stronger collaboration among citizens, businesses, and other organizations.”

The questionnaire had 14 questions with four being on the environment and another four on “improving community representation.

Others dealt with issues such as transportation, building heights, recreation facilities and the direction council receives from staff.

The responses can be seen here.


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