I sent the following email to Penticton Mayor Dan Ashton regarding two-tiered user fees for recreational assets owned by the City of Penticton:

-----Original Message-----
From: "Michael Brydon"
To: "Dan Ashton"
Subject: Two-tiered recreation fees

Hi Dan,

I was just catching up on my reading following a couple of weeks of vacation and was alarmed to read a story in the Herald (12 Mar, 2009) about the City of Penticton "scrambling" to implement a two-tiered recreation fee. I inherited a binder from Ron Perrie entitled "Sub-Regional Recreation" that discusses the current situation in which 23% of those who register for programs with the City of Penticton's Recreation Department are not residents of the City. Documents in the binder argues for "fairness" in shouldering the burden of subsidies for these programs.

The RDOS recently followed the lead of other regional districts in the Okanagan and awarded a grant to the Okanagan Film Commission.  I am against such grants/subsidies for many reasons.  But the most important is that the economic impact of film production in the Okanagan is negligible.  Indeed, the economic impact of the entire tourism sector is much smaller than most people realize.

I collected some census data and submitted a report to the RDOS board in order to back up these claims.  The full report can be found here, although the central argument is captured in the graphic below

We recently completed a three-round Delphi survey to determine an appropriate set of goals and objectives for dealing with the horse problem in Area F.  I have posted

• an overview of the horse issue
• the overall results of the "Goals and Objectives" Delphi survey
• a detailed breakdown of the voting in Round 3 by the Delphi panel

The next stage is to develop a set of alternatives that satisfy the most important goals and objectives. This second "Possible Solutions" Delphi survey is currently in progress.  Please contact me if you would like to know more or become involved.