Beyond 1,000: Two Weeks on the Trail in Kelowna

The conversations didn’t stop at 1,000. If anything, they got better. Over the past two weeks the questions have shifted from “who are you?” to “what would you actually do about this?” That’s the part I’ve been waiting for.

Over 1,000 conversations and still going.

Where I’ve been: Meet the Candidate events at Pandosy Waterfront Park, in Rutland, and downtown. Door knocking. A Sikh temple. A Diwali fundraiser. A Mid-Autumn Festival. A children’s group fundraiser. A podcast where I got to tell my whole story. And a tour through a heritage house that a group of residents is working to save from demolition.

The Rutland Residents Association event deserves its own mention. Something like four hundred people came through to meet candidates. The women who organized it welcomed my son and me like we already knew each other. That neighbourhood’s pride in itself is something the rest of this city should pay attention to.

What people are asking now

The Performing Arts Centre. Not whether, but where. Should it be in the Cultural District? Would I support spending the next year properly sourcing a location before anything gets committed? My answer is that a building this size and this expensive deserves the time to get the site right, and that the public should be part of choosing it rather than finding out afterward.

Kelowna Springs. This one comes up everywhere. Half the course sold, industrial use, pickleball courts, and a nine-hole compromise that a lot of people don’t accept. Some feel strongly that none of it should have gone. What I hear underneath it is a bigger question about green space: once it’s gone, it doesn’t come back.

Buildings going up and sitting empty. Rents have eased somewhat, but finding a decent rental is still hard, and people are watching new towers fill with investment units instead of neighbours. If we have empty buildings and people with nowhere to go, it’s worth asking whether some of that space could be repurposed for transitional housing and real pathways to recovery.

Safety and homelessness. Still first, everywhere, every time. What I try to be careful about is that there isn’t one homeless population. There are people who are there because of a situation, often briefly, and there are people who need long-term managed recovery. Those are different problems and they need different answers.

Something I’d never thought about

In a Glenmore neighbourhood, residents live beside a farm that uses audible bird scare cannons. They told me it fires off every few minutes. There are children on the autism spectrum in those homes who are frightened of loud noises, and a school nearby.

I went and looked into what a city can actually do. Farms are protected under the provincial Right to Farm Act, and noise from normal farm practice is specifically covered, so a council can’t simply ban the devices. But other BC municipalities have adopted bird scare device bylaws that require farmers to register, submit a management plan, and follow provincial guidelines on timing and placement near homes and schools. The Province publishes a model bylaw for exactly this.

That’s something Kelowna could do. Farmers need to protect their crops, and families need to be able to open a window. Both of those can be true.

From the younger people I’ve talked to

Support for young entrepreneurs, with accountability attached. Funding or loans to launch, paired with mentorship from experienced business people, and a requirement to show progress rather than just receive a cheque. Kelowna’s economy is agriculture, tourism, and small business. The next industry is going to come out of somebody’s spare room, and we should make that easier.

And from multi-generational farming families: they want their kids to see a future in it. That’s worth protecting too.

---

Eighteen days until election day. Advance voting opens Wednesday, October 7, with more days on October 10, 14, 15 and 16. Everything you need is at teresamay.ca/vote.

I’m still listening.

Teresa