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NEWS NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN PENTICTON WESTERN
COUNTDOWN TO THE GAMES
15 days
www.pentictonwesternnews.com
Vol. 50 ISSue 12
WeDNeSDAY, FeBRuARY 10, 2016
CANOPY IDEA BURNS OUT
NEWS NEWS PENTICTON WESTERN PENTICTON WESTERN Steve Kidd
Western News Staff
Penticton won’t be sporting a Fremont Avenue-style light canopy over Main Street anytime in the near future. The controversial light canopy was dropped from the Downtown Revitalization plan with little discussion today (Feb. 9) after city council was told that both grant requests for the project, totalling over $2.421 million, had been turned down. “The project is now short funding,” said director of operations Mitch Moroziuk. “The total project cost, excluding the LED light canopy, is $4.2 million.” Moroziuk said there is $1.5 million available for the project, leaving a shortfall of $2.7 million. In the absence of the grant funding, Moroziuk told council the project could continue with alternate funding sources. Moroziuk recommended first removing the $394,000 cost of the light canopy from the project, using $146,000 carried forward from 2015, and allocating $1.3 million in Gas Tax Funds to the project. That still leaves a shortfall of $875,000, which Moroziuk said could be made up by borrowing money from the city’s other reserve funds. “You repay that borrowing by using 2017 gas tax money, or you re-prioritize your projects in 2017,” said Moroziuk. That would reduce the gas tax reserve to $426,000 in 2017, he explained. “It would also reduce our ability to undertake other projects, such as the SS Si-
We can’t keep band-aiding some of the things together, we can’t be band-aiding infrastructure together.
– City Coun. Helena Konanz
camous master plan projects, facility master plan upgrades.” Coun. Helena Konanz was concerned that investing in the revitalization right now was not a good use of funds. “For the last few months, we have been told that our infrastructure in the city is crumbling,” said Konanz. “We can’t keep band-aiding some of the things together, we can’t be band-aiding infrastructure together. Beyond beautifying Main Street, part of the cost of the project is infrastructure repairs on the 60-year-old water pipes under the road. City engineer Ian Chapman said that doesn’t comprise a large part of the costs, but is essential. “It is right in the area (time period) that they could fail at anytime,” said Chapman, noting that a section did fail last year, flooding the downtown. “It is at the end of its lifespan. It is time to replace it.” Some of the councillors were concerned that businesses in the 100- and 200 blocks had made plans for dealing with the construction period, even planning their own renovations. See CANOPY on PG. 2
Just breezing through — Despite being the hometown boy, tyler breeze (right) was getting more boos than cheers from the crowd as he took on fan favourite Dolph ziggler in WWe Live at the south okanagan events Centre saturday night.
steve Kidd/Western news
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