**Coldstreamernews**

Monday, September 30, 2013

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Amalgamation - dialogue with politicians - and a response

Mr Moore has a telephone and he himself could approach those politicians if he wanted to talk to them. I, personally, have never refused to talk to any citizen who called me for a discussion. Mr Moore, my phone number is 250 545-8772. You may call me and we can talk.

However, it would have been better to discuss the petition plan prior to launching the petition so the organizers could have garnered some information to relay to potential petitioners. It is obvious from some of the comments that some respondents don't know very much of the history of the area (i.e. Petitioner 957.... Comments: “it should have never happened to begin with!").

They could have learned that the former Mayor of Vernon has had a major push to do exactly what this petition is trying to do. They could have also explained to would be petitioners what potential negative consequences amalgamation could have on all jurisdictions, including on the taxpayers of Vernon. Not long ago Kelowna and Westbank had a major study to determine if Westbank should join Kelowna or form their own municipality. The decision speaks for itself: West Kelowna is a separate municipality.

As an elected Councillor I would strive for the best deal for the taxpayers who elected me. Amalgamation was never part of my election platform. I don't think I would have been elected if it were. Nevertheless, if a large number of Coldstream taxpayers demanded an amalgamation review and the majority of Council would favour it, by all means, let’s have a review. So far I have not encountered such demand.

Below I present some news clips from the Morning Star relating to the 2008 amalgamation debates. That is some of the information an organization wishing to initiate an amalgamation petition should provide to the “Citizens of Greater Vernon” so they could make a more informed decision before they put their name to an amalgamation petition.

Gyula Kiss
Councillor
Coldstream

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