This Week I Heard: Rutland, Kelowna
Week two of Teresa May's 1,000 Conversations Tour in Rutland, Kelowna: what 34 residents said about homelessness and safety, roads and growth, city spending, and staying informed.
This week I spent two mornings in Rutland (Wednesday and Friday at the Tim Hortons on Highway 33) and spoke with 34 residents.
Running total: 94 / 1,000 conversations · 2 / 13 neighbourhoods
Rutland is about a fifth of this city. It deserves more than one visit, so I’ll be back again in September.
What I heard most
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Homelessness and safety, again, and more urgently. This was the first thing raised in almost every conversation, just as it was downtown. What’s different in Rutland is the frustration underneath it: a sense that this neighbourhood carries the same problems as the rest of the city and gets less attention for it.
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What comes after the tent. Several people told me the same thing in different words: they don’t want people living on the street, and they don’t think the current approach is getting anyone off it. What they want is somewhere for people to go: real treatment, real recovery beds, real mental health care. I heard a lot of compassion in these conversations, and a lot of exhaustion.
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The roads didn’t grow with the city. Traffic came up over and over. Nobody I spoke with is against Kelowna growing. They can see why it’s happening. What they object to is the buildings arriving first and the infrastructure arriving years later, if at all. One person put it plainly: this isn’t the old Kelowna anymore, and the roads haven’t caught up.
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Spending that doesn’t feel like it’s for them. The Parkinson Recreation Centre redevelopment came up repeatedly, and the reaction wasn’t about the facility. It was about watching a very large number get spent somewhere else. I understand the case for it. But when someone in Rutland asks me why that project and not their sidewalks, that’s a fair question and it deserves a real answer.
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“Just tell us what’s going on.” This one surprised me. Several people said they had no idea where to find out what the City is doing. When I mentioned that council meetings are recorded and posted, that the budget is published, that you can sign up for email updates, all of it was news to them. The information is all there. It just isn’t reaching people. That’s a fixable problem, and it shouldn’t take a candidate sitting in a coffee shop to solve it.
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Doctors and hospital capacity. Family doctor shortages, emergency room waits, and whether the hospital can keep up with how fast we’re growing. Health care is a provincial responsibility, but a councillor who can’t advocate for their residents at the provincial level isn’t doing the whole job.
What people love
The climate, the lake, the sports, the nature. And one answer I hadn’t heard before: opportunity. Someone told me Kelowna is a place where you can still build something. I’d like to keep it that way.
Thank you to everyone in Rutland who took the time, and to the team at Tim Hortons on Highway 33 for making room for us.
Next week I’ll be in North Glenmore for one session:
- Wednesday, August 5, 9:00–11:00 a.m. at Bright Jenny Coffee, 1970 Kane Road
Can’t make it? Share your thoughts anytime at teresamay.ca/1000.
Teresa