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CANADIAN RUGBY championship at the Apple Bowl sees Prairie Wolf Pack score second straight win over the B.C. Bears.
GIFT TO Grandmothers making a difference in the lives of African children through their sewing skills.
TWO AIR CADETS with 243 Ogopogo Squadron reach new heights in graduating from glider school program held at Comox on Vancouver Island.
ALISTAIR WATERS says Rutland’s former recreational ‘jewel,’ Centennial Park, has now been left to spiral downward.
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TUESDAY August 19, 2014 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
▼ RUTLAND
Centennial Park upgrade gets shot down
Alistair Waters
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Members of the Rutland Park Society have killed a deal that would have seen the City of Kelowna take over and improve Centennial Park and pay the society $800,000, money which would have been used to fix up the aging Centennial Park Hall. At a society members meeting to vote on the deal last Thursday night, while 63 per cent of the 102 votes cast were in favour, a minimum of 75 per cent was needed, according to the society’s constitution. The society has 120 members. “I’m stunned,” said a visibly shaken Todd Sanderson, president of the society, after the vote. During the evening, Sanderson had repeatedly made it clear the deal was a good one for the society, Rutland the future of the park and the hall. Sanderson and his board had negotiated the deal with the city because of the need to improve the park, which was once a centrepiece for Rutland. But in recent years, it has fallen into disrepair and is not often used by families except for when it hosts the annual May Days fair, he said. One person described the park as a field of weeds. Reports of drug dealers using the park have also been made. Sanderson told the meeting that too many do not know the park and adjacent hall are owned and operated by the society, and that their poor current condition is a reflection of what those people believe Kelowna City Hall thinks about Rutland. “They look at the condition of the park they think the city doesn’t care about this area,” he said. But Coun. Gerry Zimmermann, a long-time Rutland resident who spoke on behalf of the city at the meeting, said that perception is dead wrong. He said the current council has made improving Rutland a priority and the $800,000 it was willing to pay for the 5.5-acre park and a further $400,000 it had budgeted to start work to improve it were evidence of that. He said more money would likely come “sooner rather than later” to finish the park improvements. See Park A10
DOUGLAS FARROW/CONTRIBUTOR
SPLASHY EXIT…Edmonton’s Mark Brown emerges from Okanagan Lake after the swimming leg of the men’s elite sprint Sunday during the Pushor Mitchell Apple Triathlon. More than 1,200 athletes in the elite, age group and kids divisions took part in the 32nd annual event in Kelowna. See more event coverage on A15.
▼ AGRICULTURE
Fear over land reserve changes mellow Jennifer Smith STAFF REPORTER
It appears allowing housing development on agricultural land was never on the provincial agenda, according to Fred Steele, president of the B.C. Fruit Grow-
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ers’ Association. Steele, a Kelowna orchardist, met with ministry of agriculture officials last Thursday as part of a consultation process for writing the regulations needed to carry out the Agricultural Land Commission amendments.
The regulations delineate what activities are allowed on farmland, whether those be business ventures or additional buildings, without application to the ALC. After hearing the discussion, Steele does not believe de-
velopment, whether for pipelines, housing or resorts, is an underlying motivation as critics initially feared. “They were actually talking about subdividing pieces
See Mellowed A7
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