Skip to content

Penticton budget process on stream

City engaging social media to encourage public to participate in budget process

The City of Penticton is making 2013 budget deliberations a social affair, inviting citizens and stakeholders to engage in presentations through social media.

“The City of Penticton budget deliberations have become a more open and transparent process and we want increased public input. The city has been expanding our efforts in citizen outreach and engagement,” said Mayor Dan Ashton. “We invite all citizens to take part either in person or through new technology.”

Annual budget deliberations for the municipality take multiple days to go through, and cover a wide array of spending decisions in both operating and capital budgets. Public input and feedback during the presentations are important, and time will be set aside each day to allow citizens and stakeholders to ask questions, provide comments and give suggestions.

Accommodations are being made to allow those whose schedules don’t permit daytime meetings to engage in the process. All budget meetings will be streamed live on the  city’s website: www.penticton.ca/live-video.

Also, city staff will be monitoring Twitter on the city’s @cityofpenticton account. Citizens can use the hashtag #penbudget13 to provide comments, suggestions and questions. These will be presented to council verbally, and responses will be provided directly back to the original poster as quickly as possible.

The 2013 budget meeting schedule is as follows: Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: operational budget; Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: operational budget and grants; Dec. 7 from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: utilities operating budgets and capital budgets.

A special meeting of council will be held at 9 a.m. on Dec. 13 to give first three readings of the budget bylaw. Final adoption of the 2013 budget bylaw is scheduled for Dec. 17 during the regular meeting of council. All meetings are scheduled to take place in council chambers in City Hall.

Budget presentations are available online as well. Visit www.penticton.ca/budget2013 to download the files.