Illogical new date for UBCM

It seems that this year’s Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention could end up being a waste of time for many of the participants. At issue is the date — Sept. 10-14 in beautiful Whistler.

The convention date — due to the vast number of hotel rooms required — is booked years in advance.

UBCM 2018 was booked well before the election dates were changed to Oct. 10 by the last provincial government. So, for this year, it could be problematic. Not so says valley mayors. “West Kelowna will be there this year because it is an important opportunity to meet with cabinet ministers on issues of concern to West Kelowna,” said Mayor Doug Findlater.

“I don’t see a problem,” echoed Summerland’s Peter Waterman. Ditto for Vernon’s mayor Akbal Mund. “The dates were given to us last year, we have had almost a year to plan for UBCM,” he said.

The logic in moving election day up one month was it will offer better weather on voting day plus expanded daylight hours for campaigning.

Findlater notes that the UBCM/election conflict will only affect this year, and not the next three.

Chances are, many city and town councillors from across the province will be staying home to campaign.

Hopefully the mayors we reached out to are correct in that it will prove to be a beneficial exercise.

UBCM is an expensive exercise and some believe it’s a glorified “munch and crunch,” which there is evidence to suggest following a series of photos posted by former Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen director Allan Patton.

Playing the devil’s advocate, how can anyone go to meet with provincial representatives when they cannot say with 100 per cent certainty that they will win reelection? — Valley editor James Miller