Songwriters to gather in Penticton
Country musician Gord Bamford, Grammy nominee Jimmy Yeary, rising star Jessica Mitchell and longtime Sheryl Crow collaborator Jeff Trott will be part of a Penticton songwriting festival this year.
The third annual 97 South Song Sessions takes place in July.
Those who buy tickets before Sunday can win a VIP experience that includes an invite-only dinner with the songwriters on July 22, VIP seating at the shows, VIP rates with Penticton Lakeside Resort and more. Check the 97 South Song Sessions Instagram page for details.
The weekend series of shows features pop, rock and country songwriters from Canada and the U.S. performing their hit songs and relating the stories behind them.
97 South Song Sessions runs July 23-24 at the Penticton Lakeside Resort and Penticton Trade and Convention Centre. Pass holders will enjoy two 90-minute shows on backto-back nights. A weekend festival pass is $120 per person and VIP passes are available for $300.
On the web: 97southsongsessions.com
A decade-long tax freeze for a program that controls an insect harmful to Okanagan orchards will likely end soon.
Funding for the Sterile Insect Release program is jeopardized by a nearly 60% decline in the amount of valley land devoted to apple and pear production since the early 1990s.
That has reduced revenue generated through a parcel tax on agricultural lands, increasing the likelihood that both the diminishing number of farmers as well as urbanites will soon be asked to cover more of the SIR program’s $4.1 million annual expenses.
“(Our) finances have been impacted by the decline in apple acreage, as total revenues from the parcel tax continue to shrink,” states the most recent SIR board report.
“At the beginning of the program, there were 20,000plus acres of pomme fruit. At the beginning of 2021, there are just 7,500 acres remaining,” the report states.
Taxes that support the SIR program have remained the same since 2010. But 2021 will “likely be the final year of frozen tax rates”, the report says, as the organization needs to increase revenue to remain viable.
The SIR program was established to reduce the number of codling moth, an insect which can devastate apple and pear orchards if unchecked. Sterile moths are raised at an Osoyoos plant and then released into the wild, an approach that over time has reduced the number of such insects present in the Okanagan by an estimated 90%.
The program is funded by the $139 per acre parcel tax on farmland, as well as a surtax paid by owners of properties in urban areas in the Okanagan. For 2020, the average Kelowna homeowner paid about $11 toward the SIR program.
Until now, SIR managers have coped with the steady decline in parcel tax revenues, in large part, by selling sterile moth raised at the Osoyoos plant to other appleproducing regions.
But that approach can no longer offset the decline in tax revenues, SIR managers say, raising what they say is the necessity for a tax increase.