NEW ELECTORAL BOUNDARIES FOR CENTRAL OKANAGAN WEST

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This article below is from the Kelowna Daily Courier

Westside neighbourhood wants back into riding
Daily Courier Staff
2008-02-18

A Central Okanagan subdivision has been left off the map proposed for the new Westside-Kelowna riding.

Five hundred residents of West Shore Estates are feeling they‘re on the wrong side of the northern border of the riding proposed by the province‘s Electoral Boundaries Commission.

According to government documents, the renamed riding of Westside-Kelowna extends north to Killiney Beach, a community on Okanagan Lake about eight kilometres south of West Shore Estates.

“The government seems to forget that West Shore Estates is even here. We‘ve been here 20 to 25 years,” said Allastair Fergusson, president of the North Westside Ratepayers Association.

“It‘s not uncommon. We‘re an unknown entity out here. We‘re kind of in a no-man‘s land.”

The 200-home subdivision is part of the Central Okanagan regional district, which collects taxes from the residents and enforces its bylaws there, Fergusson said. The way the proposed boundaries are drawn now, West Shore Estates is located in the Shuswap electoral district instead.

Fergusson has reported the apparent error to the office of Kelowna-Westside MLA Rick Thorpe and to Jim Edgson, regional director of the Central Okanagan West electoral area.

“It was a mistake,” Edgson said Sunday. “The proposed boundary is just below the boundary of the Okanagan Indian Band. That means it‘s the same northern boundary that has existed for the last few years.”

Proposed changes to the riding boundaries have upset Kelowna Mayor Sharon Shepherd. She‘s unhappy the suggested eastern boundary would cross the lake and absorb a prime slice of downtown Kelowna, home to about 17,000 residents.

Shepherd wants city council to lobby the province for a third MLA in Kelowna to reflect the city‘s projected growth.

This article below is from the Kelowna Daily Courier

Chunk of Kelowna to vote with Westside
By J.P. SQUIRE
2008-02-15 

The numbers just didn‘t add up for a provincial commission, so downtown Kelowna voters will help select a new Westside MLA and Peachland voters will direct their attention south to Penticton.

Kelowna Mayor Sharon Shepherd, unhappy with the commission‘s final decision, will suggest city council lobby the government directly for a third MLA in Kelowna.

On Wednesday, the B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission released its final report, which will be reviewed and decided by the provincial legislature.

The key recommendation in the Central Okanagan is separating 17,015 downtown residents from the Kelowna-Mission and Kelowna-Lake Country ridings to become part of Westside-Kelowna, the renamed Okanagan-Westside riding.

The commission also decided the southern boundary of Westside-Kelowna would be slightly adjusted to the boundary of the new Westside municipality rather than the Okanagan Connector.

The original name last summer was Kelowna-Westside, but since most of the voters will be on the Westside, the name was reversed in the final report.

“In dealing with the boundary-setting process, at some point cities like Kelowna are too big to have just one (MLA). They are not the right population to be divided into nice numbers and so a challenge to an electoral boundaries commission is how do you try to even it out throughout a region including cities like Kelowna,” said commission member Stewart Ladyman during a conference call.

The result is a smaller number of people in Kelowna being combined with a larger number of people on the Westside, he explained.

“That‘s not what the mayor of Kelowna suggested to us at our public hearing, but you just can‘t create parts of electoral districts just to satisfy civic or city boundaries,” said Ladyman.

Shepherd used population growth figures from the city‘s official community plan to show Kelowna-Mission (50,900), Kelowna-Lake Country (52,000) and a new riding of Kelowna Centre (50,700) would be within the 25 per cent deviation from the provincial average allowed in legislation.

Peachland, which has closer ties with Westbank than Penticton, would even out the population of the new Westside-Kelowna riding.

“Our worry is that it‘s eight years before you even have an opportunity to review it again. Obviously, we are in support of having another member represent part of our community, but we were really concerned that it was going to be difficult for people to identify who represents them on provincial issues when you‘ve got a split electoral district,” said Shepherd.

“I don‘t think that we quit at this point in time. I certainly would be suggesting (to city council) sending a letter off to the premier with the information and asking him to review it before they make the final decision on the boundaries. I felt we had a very good case.”

The city may have erred in not making the argument for three MLAs based on growth projections during the commission‘s first tour of the Okanagan, since the hearings this winter were the final go-round, and all of the riding boundaries had been set, she said.

Peachland did not attend, which would have supported the city‘s case.

Peachland Mayor Graham Reid said Thursday his council understands the necessity to balance the size of ridings to meet the provincial average.

“Peachland had been part of that Penticton riding before, and now we‘re moving back again. The importance for Peachland is not so much which area you are in, but how good your representation is from your MLA,” he said.

Provincial grants have been very important for Peachland, and Okanagan-Westside MLA Rick Thorpe has “worked very hard for Peachland,” he said.

“We would expect that any MLA who might represent that area in the future, depending on how that shakes out, would work as hard for Peachland as Minister (of Small Business) Thorpe does.”

The renamed riding of Westside-Kelowna extends north to Killiney Beach (*Note - this part was a mistake says Allastair Fergusson from the Ratepayers Association.  Allastair believes the boundary is really at Westshore Estates at the OKIB reserve), the current boundary of Okanagan-Westside, and south generally to the Okanagan Connector.

In Kelowna, the Westside-Kelowna boundary follows Trench Place, High Road, Glenmore Drive and Harvey Avenue, encompassing downtown Kelowna.