Municipal business hampered by flooding in West Kelowna
City council told spring floods forced staff to put regular work on hold for weeks, delaying projects
The flooding emergency in West Kelowna this past spring consumed 27 per cent of city staff’s time.
The rush to deal with the rising waters meant that much other municipal business was not done as expected in May and June, city council was to hear last night.
“With the flood emergency monopolizing staff’s time, the normal day-to-day work fell behind,” chief administrative officer Jim Zaffino says.
“In the early stages of the flood response, it was literally all hands on deck,” he says, citing as an example: “We had engineering technicians and administration staff assisting with sandbag building.”
Catching up will not be a simple matter, Zaffino says, explaining that some staff initiatives expected to be done this year will be pushed into 2018.
For example, a study on water rates that was to have been finished by the end of June now won’t be completed until next January. And installation of a soccer dome, once foreseen to happen by this October, might not occur until next August.
Some bylaw complaints were not investigated, water and sewer line maintenance was deferred, and the 2018 municipal budget now will be presented in December rather than November.
In total, the anticipated completion date of about 45 city projects has been pushed back because of time lost to flood-related issues.
Workers in almost all city departments — including fire, engineering, planning, finance, management, IT and parks — had
some role in responding to the flooding situation, Zaffino says.
“The emergency lasted a total of 99 days including weekends, of which 71 days were regular workdays,” he says.
Unlike the town of Lake Country, where flood cleanup costs have been pegged at $1.7 million, West Kelowna does not yet have a tally for dealing with the flooding.