More street and sidewalk cleaning is seen as one small way to deal with problems downtown. Credit: FILE PHOTO

Downtown Kelowna Association continues clean streets campaign

KELOWNA – Downtown property owners will continue to pay a higher levy this year as the business improvement area continues its beefed-up cleaning and security program.

Owners of Class 5 and 6 properties in the improvement area will pay a levy of $1.50 for every $1,000 of assessed value, allowing the Downtown Kelowna Association to spend $828,000 this year.

Last year the association spent $804,000, up from $781,000 in 2014, to bolster its popular clean team program.

The team operates two ATVs equipped with a pressure washers, leaf blowers and industrial strength vacuums, sending them on clean-up calls throughout the improvement area.

The association has budgeted $110,000 this year for the clean team and will spend $216,000 on the downtown on-call security program.

Council had no questions of Downtown Kelowna Association executive director Peggy Athans before approving the levy this week.

To contact a reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

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John McDonald

John began life as a journalist through the Other Press, the independent student newspaper for Douglas College in New Westminster. The fluid nature of student journalism meant he was soon running the place, learning on the fly how to publish a newspaper.

It wasn’t until he moved to Kelowna he broke into the mainstream media, working for Okanagan Sunday, then the Kelowna Daily Courier and Okanagan Saturday doing news graphics and page layout. He carried on with the Kelowna Capital News, covering health and education while also working on special projects, including the design and launch of a mass market daily newspaper. After 12 years there, John rejoined the Kelowna Daily Courier as editor of the Westside Weekly, directing news coverage as the Westside became West Kelowna.

But digital media beckoned and John joined Kelowna.com as assistant editor and reporter, riding the start-up as it at first soared then went down in flames. Now John is turning dirt as city hall reporter for iNFOnews.ca where he brings his long experience to bear on the civic issues of the day.

If you have a story you think people should know about, email John at jmcdonald@infonews.ca

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