Incorporation bid crashes in Shuswap

Residents of two small communities in the Shuswap voted overwhelmingly against the idea of incorporating as a stand-alone municipality in a weekend referendum that could reverberate in Okanagan Falls.

Of the 2,299 votes cast by residents of Blind Bay and Sorrento, 88% were against incorporating, according to unofficial results released Saturday night by the Columbia Shuswap Regional District.

Paul Demonok, the sitting CSRD director for Sorrento-Blind Bay, was among those who appeared in March at a town hall meeting in Okanagan Falls to discuss the top of incorporation. Demonok told The Herald in advance of the meeting that his constituents’ main concern was increased taxes.

The process in Okanagan Falls is several years’ behind that in Sorrento-Blind Bay.

At present, a local committee is working with a consultant to study the most pressing services issues in Area D and consider possible boundary adjustments.

The study is due to be presented this summer to the board of the Regional District of

Okanagan-Similkameen, but it’s unlikely any further work would be ordered until after the October municipal election.

The RDOS tried in 2010 and 2012 to obtain funding from the B.C. government for an incorporation study, but was turned down, prompting former Area D director Tom Siddon in 2013 to seek a broader governance study that eventually recommended splitting the area into two parts, a change that took effect with the 2018 civic election.

The only time the possibility of incorporation was actually put to a vote was in 1989, when it failed in a referendum.