This page expands the last section of my West Kelowna council platform, promises 19 through 21. Council adopted the updated West Kelowna Transportation Master Plan on June 9, and most of what frustrates people on the roads here belongs to the province, so this page has to be honest about what a councillor can and cannot touch. It also covers wildfire, because after August 2023 nobody in this city needs convincing that mitigation matters, and the question is only whether we can see the number. I have already published all 21 promises in short form; the money, housing, downtown Westbank, and public engagement pages come before this one.
Summary: where I stand on transportation and wildfire
- Put the city's provincial asks in writing, with numbers, and publish them. The highway and the bridge are provincial. The quality of our ask is not. One public list with a cost, a priority, and a date, so residents know what we asked for and the province knows we are watching.
- Funded versus listed. The new Transportation Master Plan is a 20-year plan. I would attach a public tracker showing which items have money and which are still wishes, updated with every budget.
- Publish the wildfire mitigation number every year. Dollars in, hectares treated, what is next. One page, every spring, before fire season.
Two things I will not say: that council can fix the bridge, or that a plan is the same as a budget. One councillor is one vote of seven.
On this page
Whose road is it
When someone at the door tells me about sitting on Highway 97 for forty minutes, the honest first answer is that the highway is not ours. Highway 97, the bridge, the interchanges, and the downtown couplet all belong to the Ministry of Transportation and Transit. The city's own strategic priorities list the ministry's planned Highway 97 intersection upgrades as an item for "active and ongoing advocacy," which is the polite way of saying we ask and we wait.
What is ours: every local road, every sidewalk, every crosswalk, the traffic calming on your street, the city's share of the transit contract, and the quality of the ask we send to Victoria. That last one is where most of this page lives, because it is the one thing about the highway a councillor can actually change.
| What residents complain about | Who controls it | What council can do |
|---|---|---|
| Highway 97 congestion, the bridge, interchanges | Province | Ask well, in writing, with numbers, and publish the ask |
| The downtown couplet | Province, with city design input | Finish the Main Street design (see the downtown page) |
| Transit routes and frequency | BC Transit, with city funding share | Fund more service hours, ask for more |
| Local roads, sidewalks, crossings, speeding on your street | City | Fund it, schedule it, score it in public |
| Wildfire fuel on city land and parks | City, with provincial grants | Fund it and publish what got done |
Who owns what. Most of the frustration sits in the first row. Most of the control sits in the last two.
What the West Kelowna Transportation Master Plan is, and is not
On June 9, council adopted the updated Transportation Master Plan, a 57-page, 20-year framework for roads, transit, walking, and cycling. West K News covered the adoption. It replaced the 2014 plan and took three rounds of public engagement between 2022 and 2025 to produce. The plan lives at ourwk.ca/transportation-master-plan, and I have read it.
Here is what it is. A list of the right projects, in a sensible order, with the reasoning behind each one. That is what a master plan is for and this one does the job.
Here is what it is not. A budget. Nothing in a 20-year plan has money attached until it shows up in a five-year financial plan, and most of it will not for years. That is normal. What is not normal is that a resident reading the plan cannot tell which items are funded, which are coming, and which are wishes. A plan where everything looks equally likely is a brochure, and I do not mean that as an insult to the people who wrote it. I mean it as a description of what residents can see.
Three years after McDougall Creek
The McDougall Creek fire started on August 15, 2023, about ten kilometres northwest of the city. It burned close to 14,000 hectares and, as reported, took 70 homes in West Kelowna and 20 on Westbank First Nation land. This past June, the Kalamoir Park fire reminded everyone how fast it happens. Nobody here needs a lecture on why fuel mitigation matters.
What I could not find, after looking, is one page that says what we spend on it and what we got. The pieces are scattered. A 2024 council report describes a $50,000 ongoing operating budget for mitigation on city-owned land, plus term staff doing hands-on work. In May, the fire chief asked council to apply for the maximum $200,000 from the province's FireSmart program for next year, and warned that the city will need to start looking for other funding soon. The province has just raised that program to $15 million for 2027, from $9.3 million across 47 communities this year, and the intake opened today, October 1.
I am not claiming the city is doing too little. I do not know, and that is the point. The number that would tell residents whether we are keeping up with the risk does not exist in one place, and after 2023 it should.
The three promises, one at a time
Same format as the other pages: the problem, the motion I would bring, what you would see, and where it could go wrong.
19. Put the city's provincial asks in writing, with numbers, and publish them
The problem. Right now the asks are letters, meetings, and a line in the strategic priorities that says "advocacy." Residents cannot see what was asked for, what it would cost, or whether the province ever answered. So every election, every candidate promises to "push the province," and nobody can check whether the last council did.
The motion. A single public list of West Kelowna's asks to the province, ranked, each with an estimated cost, the date it was sent, and the response if any. Highway 97 intersection upgrades, the couplet, the bridge, transit service hours, and whatever else council agrees belongs on it. Updated whenever an ask goes out or an answer comes back. Reviewed by council once a year, in public.
What you would see. One page. What we asked for, what it costs, when we asked, what they said. The next time a minister visits, residents and reporters would have the list in hand. That changes the conversation more than another letter does.
Where it could go wrong. Some advocacy is quiet for a reason, and staff will say a public list ties their hands. Fair in a few cases, so the list can carry an item as "in discussion" without the dollar figure until it is ready. The bigger risk is that the list becomes long and nothing on it moves, which is exactly the situation we have now, just visible. I would rather have it visible.
20. Funded versus listed
The problem. The West Kelowna Transportation Master Plan is adopted, and a resident reading it has no way to tell a project that starts next spring from one that may never happen. When a sidewalk on their street is "in the plan," they reasonably think it is coming. Sometimes it is not, for a decade.
The motion. A public tracker attached to the plan: every project, with one of four statuses. Funded, with the year. In the five-year plan but not yet funded. Listed, no funding. Complete. Updated with every budget and every grant that lands. The same tracker would carry the two numbers from the money page, what it costs now and what it costs if we wait, so deferring a road project is a visible choice, not a quiet one.
What you would see. A map or a table, your choice, where you can find your street and see where it sits. Residents would stop being surprised, and council would stop being able to point at a plan as if it were a commitment.
Where it could go wrong. A tracker that shows most items as "listed, no funding" will not look good, and there will be pressure to leave it vague. That is the test. Staff already know which items have money. The only new work is showing residents.
21. Publish the wildfire mitigation number every year
The problem. The city does mitigation work. Residents cannot see it in one place. Grant money comes and goes on a one-year cycle, the fire chief has warned that the current source is changing, and the city's own operating line is small enough that it matters whether it grows. None of that is visible to the people whose homes are on the interface.
The motion. One page, every spring before fire season: dollars in, broken into city budget and grants; hectares treated on city land, by neighbourhood; FireSmart assessments and rebates delivered; what is planned for the coming year; and what is not funded. Presented to council in public and posted on the city site.
What you would see. A number you can compare to last year's. If grant money drops and the city does not backfill it, the page says so, and council has to own that in a year when the fire chief is asking for help.
Where it could go wrong. Hectares treated is a blunt measure. A hectare of interface next to Rose Valley homes is not a hectare of park interior. The page should say where, not only how much, and the fire department should set the priority order, not council. The other risk is that the page becomes a reason to say "we published it" instead of "we funded it." Publishing is the floor. It is how residents find out whether the ceiling is high enough.
What these promises do not say
They do not say council can fix the bridge. It cannot. Any candidate who tells you otherwise is describing a job they are not running for.
They do not say the plan is wrong. The West Kelowna Transportation Master Plan is a good document. It is a list of the right things. My promise is about making the money behind that list visible, not rewriting it.
They do not promise outcomes. A councillor is one vote of seven, and council does not manage staff. The CAO does. Everything above is a motion I would bring and a vote I would cast the way I said I would.
How to hold me to it
Every promise on this page produces a document. If I am elected and the document does not exist by the end of 2028, ask me why, in public.
| Promise | The document that should exist | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| 19. Written provincial asks | A public ranked list with cost, date sent, and response, reviewed by council yearly | City website, council agenda once a year |
| 20. Funded versus listed | A public tracker on the Transportation Master Plan with four statuses, updated every budget | ourwk.ca, financial plan |
| 21. Wildfire mitigation number | An annual spring report: dollars in, hectares treated by area, what is next, what is unfunded | Council agenda each spring, city FireSmart page |
If you want to see where you land on transportation, wildfire mitigation, and the rest of these questions, the West Kelowna Council Alignment Calculator takes about four minutes. The full list of promises is on my platform page.
That is all 21. Voting day is Saturday, October 17.