Is the City of Penticton’s engagement program working? I don’t believe that can be answered at this time as it has not been in existence long enough to make a credible judgement. In my mind, the benefits from having an engagement program are to maintain harmonious relations with the taxpaying citizens by considering their input and priorities and to improve decision making at city hall. If decision making is not improved, then the program is not effective, no matter how much activity takes place. I will say that the person running the program is both competent and credible. If senior management and city council (the decision makers) ignore the input as has been the case in the past, the program becomes a smokescreen for continuing to progress city administration’s priorities while ignoring those of the residents.
I followed the engagement program process to try to determine how city administration managed to make such a mess of the parking situation at the SOEC with the casino relocation. After much time and a meeting with city officials, I discovered that the city (under their signed contract) has no control over the number of cars that the casino could park in the parking lot in spite of the fact that they only pay for 60 spaces. I was told by a senior management official that the city would “manage their way out of the parking problem.” But at what cost to the taxpayer? The city is buying up property for additional parking that the casino should have been required to purchase as a condition in the lease agreement. City administration, in their mind, has the situation well under control, and no further engagement or input from residents is required. I will let the residents be the judge of that.
I notice that the mayor credits the city with improving engagement with the residents as one reason to re-elect him. The engagement program could indeed be a valuable asset to the city, contingent on the decision makers using it as intended. Based on past experience, this is not, in any way, assured. It will be well into the next administration’s term until that value of the engagement program is determined. In actual fact, no one really knows now.
Claude Bergman
Penticton