Shannon Quesnel

B.C. will hold a general vote for its 40th election tomorrow but 6,475 Penticton residents have already made their mark in advance polls. That's a little more than 15 per cent of the 42,651 eligible voters in the riding. To find out where to vote tomorrow check your voter registration cards. Alternatively residents can go...

Penticton raised its flower pots on Monday in celebration of summer. Two city workers used a crane to hoist themselves over parked cars to hang 75 40-pound flower pots from Main Street light poles. Other signs of the summer season are the open markets on Main Street on Satudays, the Meadowlark Nature Festival starting on...

School District 67 trustees and administration are still choosing to remain quiet about how a convicted sex offender got district approval to transfer a student—a victim—from one school to another so they could live together in August 2011. According to the student's father, who will not be named to protect the identity of his son, Rene...

A one-hectare fire on Penticton Indian Band land is now under control. Band fire chief Barry Phillips said six of his firefighters went to the intersection of Sage Road and Westhill Road where a grass fire was burning. A three-person B.C. Wildfire crew attended.  Phillips said the fire was one hectare in size when they...

A Penticton driver was busted on Highway 97 in Summerland for drug possession. Richard Joseph Seguin, 49, was pulled over and RCMP officers found him, three teenage girls and crystal meth. The girls were released without charges. Seguin faces one charge of possession of methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking and was taken into custody....

Someone stole several thousand dollars in tools and copper wire at Moduline Industries in Penticton and Crimestoppers wants to nail the thief. On April 27 someone cut the fence at the site, snuck in and made off with the loot. Two days before this event an unknown male was allegedly casing the site from a...

A power outage that affected Penticton's entire south end has FortisBC scratching their heads. The power utility company is still investigating why on Wednesday thousands of south-end customers could not turn on their televisions and laptops. A FortisBC substation on Waterford Avenue had turned off due to an unknown event around 4 p.m. Penticton Fire...

Penticton Fire Rescue was busy with a hat-trick of fires on Monday. A boat caught fire on Okanagan Lake, a hotel room had a small blaze and a shed was a victim of carelessness. Fire chief Wayne Williams said the department used its Zodiac boat to reach the passengers of a 30-foot pleasure craft. The...

Forbes Street has been renamed Veterans Way to honour those who have served and continue to serve in the military. The downtown Penticton road runs north-south between Lakeshore Drive and Front Street. Nearby is Veterans Memorial Park with its cenotaph. The new sign comes courtesy of the city's Heritage Advisory Committee and the Veteran's Association....

NDP leader Adrian Dix blew into Summerland for a few minutes before he was whisked away to Kelowna leaving behind cookies and clapping supporters. The Vancouver-Kingsway MLA and a gaggle of reporters stepped off the campaign bus on Summerland's Main Street Wednesday morning. Dix visited a bakery and brought two plates of sweets to the...

City leadership held Penticton Hospitality Association's feet to the fire at Monday's council meeting. For an hour association president Robert Appelman, operations director Tim Hodgkinson and secretary-treasurer Marko Crucnik were grilled by council. They wanted to know how the association is spending taxpayer dollars for the purpose of external marketing of the city. Hodgkinson took...

Pensioners were spared a tiny increase in their taxes at a Penticton city council meeting today. Acting mayor Garry Litke, Couns. John Vassilaki and Wesley Hopkin voted on Monday not to shift some of the tax burden from commercial properties onto residential taxpayers. If this motion had passed, the average homeowner would have paid $7...

A developer was happy and a neighbour was upset over another delay to a large Martin Street building project. "We are dead set against an extension of time," David Ure said to Penticton city council Monday night. "Rezone it back to what it was." Ure owns property on Martin Street on the opposite side of...

A former Osoyoos man was found not guilty of sexual assault on Friday. The 65-year-old man, whose name cannot be published to protect the identity of the female complainant, was charged with sexual assault, sexual interference of a person under 14 and touching a young person for a sexual purpose, alleged to have occurred 10...

A popular Penticton nightclub wants to keep its doors open for longer to allow more usage of the building. Mule Nightclub manager Steve Parker wants the site open from 12 p.m. to 3 a.m. Monday to Sunday. Right now the club is open from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Penticton's leadership will discuss this at...

Complete demolition is what Penticton city staff recommend for the burned husk at 597 Ellis St. Only a concrete foundation remains at the corner of White Avenue and Ellis Street after a fire destroyed a boarding house there in 2011. City staff will be giving a recommendation at tonight's council meeting that notice should be...

Snowpack melt is raising Okanagan River water levels and the public is asked to stay away from river shorelines. Emergency B.C. said the melt is expected to cause higher runoff into the Okanagan River from Okanagan Lake for the next several weeks. Flows are well above normal. Children and pets need to be closely supervised....

Someone must have hand-fed his dogs poison when he wasn't home. That's Dan Bitor's conclusion as he tried to figure out how his four dogs, Tank, Shotgun (aka Sugar Bear), Norton and Gene Simmons, came into contact with rodenticide, a form of rat poison. Shotgun and Tank had to be euthanized. Norton and Gene Simmons...

A complainant's testimony has too many holes to convict a man accused of sex crimes. Defence lawyer Michael Welsh said in Penticton Supreme Court on Thursday the complainant's testimony not only conflicted with what a witness said it also contradicted her own testimony. Welsh's client, Kenneth Johnson, formerly of Osoyoos, is accused of sexually assaulting...

Interior Health has removed its watchdog administrator put in place at the Summerland Seniors Village on Jan. 25 following the death of a 91-year-old man. Alfredo Bonaldi, 91, was found near-death in his room in November after being left unattended for days. He died later in hospital. Since then IH has investigated the building and...

Domestic violence cases will have its own time slot in Penticton, Kamloops and Kelowna provincial courts. The hope is to speed up the process in which these cases are handled. Vancouver Chief Judge Thomas Crabtree ruled there was a need to address trial uncertainty, to get cases completed sooner and provide more time to study family...

The wife of a man accused of sexual assault said she saw nothing strange between her husband and some of the neighbourhood's children. Rose Johnson is the wife of Kenneth Johnson, 65, a former Osoyoos resident who stands accused of sexually assaulting a woman from when she was 13 to when she was 21 years...