Chamber didn’t ask its members

Editor: Mosaic Books, downtown Kelowna since 1968, is a long standing member of the Chamber of Commerce and we support almost all of their comments regarding the Kelowna tourism centre, made in president Tom Dyas’s letter on Monday.

However, we are very disappointed they chose to make such a strong endorsement for a location that disrupts the waterfront park space that could otherwise be turned into something magnificent to bolster the very tourism they are encouraging.

Our business has been growing nicely, especially with tourists, and there is hardly a person in Kelowna who does not know where our store is located. The Bernard Avenue revitalization has provided many improvements and opportunities for commerce to be located, including Tourism Kelowna.

Every objective the chamber mentioned could be realized without sacrificing the waterfront’s natural beauty.

In his letter, Dyas says the reduced size of the building and setback from the boardwalk are wellconsidered and positive responses to public input asking for uninterrupted access to the lakefront.

Judging from the many recent public comments, those changes were insignificant. Unless I misunderstood, the building footprint and height did not change, nor was it moved from the waterfront; rather a minor adjustment to keep the building footprint legally out of the covenant land donated by the Simpson family.

And for the record, neither the Downtown Kelowna Association nor the Chamber of Commerce reached out to their membership for an opinion.

This was a hot-button topic and I fully expected Mosaic Books would participate in an email survey from both organizations. Their opinions are therefore essentially a majority vote of the executive and meaningless as to the general opinion of their membership.

Michael, Michele, Trevor and Alicia Neill, Mosaic Books,

Kelowna