Penticton pays up with chicken, deer costumes

PENTICTON — Acting mayor Garry Litke was not shot despite wearing a deer costume with a bullseye taped to his back.

Litke and city manager Annette Antoniak, who dressed as a chicken, rode a tandem bike in front of city hall on Wednesday as the price for losing a Bike To Work Week competition with the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen. The winner was decided by tallying the number of staff each had riding bicycles to work from May 27 to June 2. This is the third time the regional board has won and the third time Penticton leadership had to do something silly.

Former mayor Dan Ashton rode a penny-farthing bicycle one year and a teeny-tiny tricycyle another time.

Litke said this is all for a good cause. The city and the board want to show residents the benefits of biking to work. The acting mayor was casual about losing again.

"The objective is to improve year after year and we are closer this year. You know the (RDOS) are getting older so I think by next year they will begin to fade away as all champions do. Penticton's time in the sun will be next year."

District chief adminstrative officer Bill Newell said they are going to step up their game. "They are getting closer to us. They are doing good, but they got a ways to go.

Litke was also wearing a red bow as part of his costume. "The objective was I wanted to be too cute to shoot."

"I was kind of worried that (former councillor) Mike Pearce might be out there, lurking with a shotgun. We're happy to avoid that scenario."

When Pearce was on city council he advocated a cull to deal with problematic mule deer.

To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Quesnel at squesnel@infotelnews.ca, call 250-488-3065 or tweet @shannonquesnel1

%%Embed1%%

Correction: An earlier version of this story said Bill Newell was acting district chair. In fact, he is the district's CAO. This story was corrected at 4:43 p.m., June 19.