This is where cold hard facts give way to the hottest of takes, mostly mine I suppose. I’m the editor, Marshall Jones.

Want to include yours? Listen, this isn’t the comment section, this isn’t social media. Discussion and debate requires context and a wee bit of bravery — we need your name and where you’re writing from. Include it in your account or email me anytime.

Clearing the air on a couple things

I need to get a couple of things off my chest.

I wrote earlier this week about Penticton-Summerland MLA Amelia Boultbee’s single-minded attempt to blame the province for a failing water system for her constituents.

She posted screenshots of that editorial to social media, kept the flattery, cut the criticism. For the record, I accused her of having no objectivity on the subject.

In Kamloops, we’ve been sucked into the ongoing political games involving the mayor.

If you missed it, here’s some background and one of the weirdest headlines and pieces I’ve ever had to write.

I’m on vacation next week, but I’d love to get your takes on this or anything else. Email me at mjones@infonews.ca.

Marshall Jones

Managing Editor

There’s only one taxpayer, right?

Folks, this ain’t The Onion or The Beaverton but sometimes the satire writes itself.

Here’s an Okanagan town complaining because they aren’t exempt from new taxes including Provincial Sales Tax.

“But, this means OUR budget will increase! You know who will have to pay for this? THE TAXPAYER!”

They want to organize some of their friends to raise their complaint about being taxed in this way. Letters written strongly and such. Give Victoria a piece of their mind.

Ha ha.

That’s it. I found it funny and these days, I take the yuks where I can find ’em. What have you got? Email me at mjones@infonews.ca.

Marshall Jones

Managing Editor

MLA Amelia Boultbee goes from politician to activist

I can’t think of an MLA who went from zero to effective quite like Penticton-Summerland’s Amelia Boultbee. Most rookie MLAs are still trying on the new shoes while Boultbee’s already sprinting down her own trails.

She makes many of them look bad, but it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t pause and look at a map now and again.

She pushed out a documentary-style video last week looking at the plight of residents of a small South Okanagan neighbourhood struggling with a failing private water utility.

She did a fine job of bringing the human side to light. I think we can all feel awful for folks there paying $1,200 per month for bad water and facing $136,000 bills — each — to fix it. They’re stressed and can’t sell their homes until it’s resolved.

Boultbee’s answer to the problem is unequivocal — provincial taxpayers should pay the $33 million cost to provide water to 242 properties. She justifies that, I guess, because she thinks that’s her job, to criticize and blame literally everything on the provincial government of the day. She offers no other real explanation for her take and removed anything resembling balance from her video.

Well, I’ll give it a shot. It’s far more complicated than her simple propaganda would have us believe. It’s actually a situation familiar to many in the Okanagan, where we are well versed on water politics. No one would live in the Okanagan at all without private water utilities built for agriculture. It’s taken decades to fold them all into public water utilities and it’s been messy.

The province learned long ago not to sop up local messes and has made clear for years it won’t fund private utilities.

Hard to argue.

Wouldn’t West Kelowna have loved a bailout for the $75 million Rose Valley water treatment plant. Kamloops needs $12 million for its plant, should they have to pay for it themselves? Kelowna is still trying to take over two private utilities, all of which, perhaps in Boultbee’s eyes, made the mistake of being well-managed.

Again, I am not without sympathy for the folks living in Sage Mesa, but I’m concerned Boultbee’s activism is going to cause them more problems.

She’s telling them they shouldn’t have to pay at the very same time they are voting in a referendum on the one solution — to hand their private utility to the regional district to be a public one and take on the debt.

That’s the only way they can get provincial money and probably will get it through grants like every other community including West Kelowna’s Rose Valley did (roughly half came from grants).

How much that might be, we don’t know, so $33 million carries quite the sticker shock but it’s simply an unknown at this point.

We already know the path to resolving this, only that trail is still dark and mysterious without the MLA trying to light it with her own name at the end.

That’s not the one Boultbee is leading them down.

That’s my take, what’s yours? Email me at mjones@infonews.ca.

Marshall Jones

Managing Editor

iN RESPONSE to Monday’s newsletter opinion-editorial on the Sage Mesa water crisis

Dear Mr. Jones,

Your article fails to mention some of the history and background on this issue.

The system was built in 1968 and was privately owned (I won’t mention names), and that it had been mismanaged. No funding was set aside for capitalizing a 25 to 30 year plan (which is the typical life for
most equipment), and which was and still is a provincial requirement under the Water Utilities Act.

In 1990 the Provincial Government seized control of this system because of this mismanagement. From 1990 to 1997 they failed to follow their own Regulations and legal requirements to set appropriate funds aside for capitalization of said long term major repairs and replacement. Even after they started to set aside some meger funds post 1997, it was no where near enough to fund the required upgrades and repairs to the system, then or now. At this time, they attempted to divest themselves of this system and proposed sale to the RDOS for $1. The RDOS wouldn’t have anything to do with it until all deficiencies from their independent engineering report were satisfied. Further, they neglected to inform the Water Users of “their” neglect nor increase water usage rates to assist in helping to build the appropriate “war chest”to assist in subsidizing the repair costs.

In 2024 RDOS had another engineering study done exposing the magnitude of the risk to us the Water Rate Payers and User Group, the Mcelhanny Report, a class D estimate of $33 million to make it safe and functional. This translates to about $230,000 per home owner over the proposed 30 years.

So are you sure about your position?

If you were living in my neighborhood and had to payout an extra $12,000/ year + the cost of the water (which now is being increased to $300/ quarter), I’m sure you’d have something negative to say about how this system has and is being mismanaged.

We applaud and fully support the work and efforts of MLA Boultbee. Thank goodness we have courageous women in the Legislature who are not afraid to speak up and support “the voice” of we the constituents, on who this Government is supposed to look out for and represent.

— Michael Allan, Sage Mesa Water User Group

Dear Marshall,

I read your recent column regarding the Sage Mesa water system and felt compelled to respond, as several important pieces of history appear to have been overlooked.

The situation is far more complex than the narrative presented, particularly the suggestion that residents simply chose to live under a failing private utility and are now expecting taxpayers to solve the problem.

For decades, the Sage Mesa water system was under the authority of the provincial Comptroller of Water Rights, who stepped in to oversee the system. Residents did not control the system during that time. The province effectively managed it while homeowners continued to pay their water bills in good faith, trusting that the system was being maintained responsibly.

During those roughly forty years of provincial oversight, necessary long-term upgrades were not completed and the system was allowed to deteriorate to the point we are now facing today.

To frame this situation as though homeowners had full control or responsibility for the system over that period does not reflect the reality residents experienced.

Homeowners here are not asking for a bailout for poor management decisions they made. They are asking for a fair solution after decades of paying into a system that was under government control and oversight.

Many residents are retirees or long-time homeowners now facing extraordinary costs, significant financial stress, and homes they cannot sell until this is resolved. The human side of the story that MLA Boultbee highlighted is very real.

Most of us simply want a workable solution that recognizes the unique history of this system and the role that government oversight played in its current condition.

Constructive dialogue and accurate history will help everyone move toward a fair outcome.

— Pamela Hanson, Sage Mesa Resident

Outdated intel likely led US to carry out deadly strike on Iranian elementary school, AP sources say

If a school in the U.S.A. had been targeted and destroyed there would have been genocide inflicted on the attacking nation. A school in Iran is destroyed killed 100+ children and it’s going to slide off the news radar in a few days. These are human beings not “them” or “those people”. They were children attending school. We should all be thinking very heavily about that. It does matter. It was not the fog of war, it was not during a battle. This was early on first strikes. This is unforgivable.

— William Mastop via iNFOnews.ca

iN RESPONSE to Monday’s newsletter opinion-editorial Amelia Boultbee and Sage Mesa

My take on it would be who approved the subdivision in that area to begin with knowing full well who controlled the water supplied to the area and with no thought that it should be kept up to date!
Who is in charge of inspections of water supplies and to ensure they are kept up to date?
If this was provincial responsibility then it should be rectifying the situation with the person who owns the water supply responsible for a good portion of the cost.
Someone dropped the ball and seems like 1. Subdivision approval. 2. Water supply inspections annual? 3. Provincial inspection standards and restrictions or procedures.

— John Chenoweth via email

MLA wants to scrap B.C.’s Human Rights Code. Some constituents want her gone instead

This woman should never have been voted in to represent our citizens.
The ONLY reason she was us because she ran under the Conservative banner.
She would not speak to constituents or reporters and got her husband to speak for her outside their home.
She is a joke, she is unworthy to be speaking on our behalf. Her office in Lake Country should not be paid from our tax dollars.
We need her GONE!!!
— G. Clay, Lake Country

Tara Armstrong Recall Countdown

Tara Armstrong is currently the MLA for Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream. She rode the coattails of the BC Conservative Party, got elected, then rejected and left the party to serve as an Independent within weeks because the Conservatives were too left wing. Now she gets to spout moronic, hateful rhetoric and claim that her riding supports her.

iN DISCUSSION: Rats. So many rats | iNFOnews.ca — Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong on April 17, 2025. SUBMITTED/Legislative Assembly of BC

Elections BC says you can recall an MLA if 40% of eligible voters in the riding sign a recall petition — but not for the first 18 months after an election. Some people started an online petition calling for a byelection once she made a shift to independent, then got herself a raise by forming her own party, but it won’t mean anything until the countdown clock hits zero.

So let the countdown begin!

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