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KELOWNA ROCKETS are happy to see the club’s athletic therapist back this season for a second stint with the WHL squad.
ÇOLUMNIST Maxine DeHart has the latest on her annual fundraiser drive-thru breakfast in support of the United Way coming up on Thursday, Oct. 10, 6 to 9 a.m.
A LOT OF introspection and discussion goes into the Kelowna Art Gallery curator’s choices of which pieces of art will make it from the permanent collection vault into the public galleries.
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83 serving our community 1930 to 2013
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THURSDAY September 26, 2013 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
▼ WEST KELOWNA
▼ UNITED WAY
Fundraising campaign changes focus Partner sought for municipal hall project
Barry Gerding EDITOR
Alistair Waters ASSISTANT EDITOR
BARRY GERDING/CAPITAL NEWS
CENTRAL Okanagan United Way fundraising campaign breakfast MC Mike Roberts put his nimble golf swing to use, helping to wrap the kick-off campaign event, Tuesday at the Delta Grand. extraordinary,” Paterson said. Gorman Bros. also stepped forward to get the fundraising ball rolling with a $20,000 donation, which will be coupled by the employee donation program the West Kelowna sawmill workers also
support. “We build ourselves up as a community by helping others,” said Ron Gorman. “We believe in the United Way and the agencies it supports are a good thing for our community.” bgerding@kelownacapnews.com
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months will be to appeal to the quality of life local residents want to see represented in their community. “If we get just one per cent more people to donate from last year, the ripple effect of that in our community would be
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local residents young and old. Jim Paterson, business development director for the City of Kelowna and co-chair of the fundraising committee this year, with Jennifer Robbins of CIBC, said the fundraising aim over the next five
West Kelowna council is pressing ahead with its plan for a new municipal hall in Westbank. On Tuesday, council voted unanimously to prepare a “prequalification” document, that would invite interested developers to come forward and, possibly, offer up land for a new 23,000-25,000-square-foot, two-storey building that the district’s consultant estimates would cost $6.5 million to build. Throw in another $2 million to buy the land and West Kelowna taxpayers could be looking at a 2.4 per cent increase ($40) on their annual property taxes to pay the building, say district finance department staff. The estimated $8.5 million total for the project would include $1 million which the district has Doug Findlater already set aside for the project. “I’m pleased with what I’m hearing,” said Mayor Doug Findlater following a presentation by project consultant Jonathan Huggert. “I feel it’s viable and affordable.” Findlater said the district could have decided to locate the new municipal hall in another area of West Kelowna, but felt it was incumbent on it to do something to help make the downtown Westbank area more viable “This is it,” he said. The Westbank Town Centre, as the district calls the area, has seen a drastic loss of business in recent years as large commercial and retail development has grown on the nearby Westbank First Nation reserve land. It also has had to deal with the issue of the Highway 97 couplet running through the area. The municipality recently gave up its effort to get rid of the couplet. In making its decision to proceed with the plan for a new municipal hall, council went with Huggert’s recommendation that the building be part of a comprehen-
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The Central Okanagan United Way decided to apply its promotional slogan “Where Change Begins” to its fundraising campaign kick-off breakfast on Tuesday morning at the Delta Grand Hotel. Unlike past years, the campaign committee opted this year to post a fundraising target that, in recent years, has always exceeded the $1 million mark. Marla O’Brien, United Way executive director for Central Okanagan and South Okanagan/Similkameen, said the intent behind the campaign this year is to downplay the million-plus target. She says the feeling was it tended to overshadow the reality that all donations, big and small, count in helping support the 29 social service agencies in the Central Okanagan, and the efforts of the volunteers and staff of those agencies and the impact of the work they do in the community. “Sometimes it seems like we were getting lost in the big campaign fundraising number we were shooting for and not focusing on what a difference the United Way and the agencies we support makes in the community,” O’Brien said. Numerous representatives of those various agencies spoke briefly at the breakfast about the services they provide to
McCurdy Rd.
Leathead Rd. Hwy 33w