JONESIE: Well, look who was partying at the Eldorado Hotel this weekend

OPINION

In Kelowna, there’s a sleeper issue burbling and bubbling before the election that not everyone has caught up with.

I say sleeper but the gate blocking public access to the boardwalk at the Eldorado Hotel has had plenty of coverage and attention. The sleeper part also really isn’t how it’s galvanized opinions but look in any public forum and it’s palpable.

Basically there’s a wonderful path stretching for miles along the entire Kelowna waterfront (ish) and it passes in front of the Eldorado and Manteo hotels — what to anyone else might be considered a shared public good, much like the Delta Grand boardwalk. Beautiful hotels, adds to the city, the ambience, lakefront corridor. Win/win.

Then a man named Ted Callahan and his company Argus Properties bought the Eldorado and put up a gate keeping people out, pretty much since the pandemic. And the public in Kelowna has been uniformly, unanimously, unambiguously pissed.

On July 21, the City of Kelowna announced it has had enough.

“To protect long-term public access along the waterfront, City Council has authorized the City to begin the expropriation process on a portion of the waterfront boardwalk in front of Hotel Eldorado.”

I’m sure the city and pols think this is decisive action announced by city communications three months before the election, and it is. The city and the pols might think every dollar spent is three dollars in future legal fees saved, and I would say that is likely true, too.

But it’s also true that every dollar of the untold sum taxpayers are about to hand Ted Callahan and the Eldorado Resort is a reward for this rich guy kicking us out, literally barring us at the gates, because he can. Council agreed to give him a big bag of cash for nothing but a gate that two courts already said he can’t have.

This is what people are saying in every forum on this subject.

The sleeper part is how any of this managed to escape Mayor Tom Dyas. He spent the weekend celebrating with Ted Callahan at the Eldorado’s 100th birthday Saturday. Tickets were $400.

He voted to expropriate the land, then not two weeks later, partied with the guy they are buying it from!

It’s an astonishingly bad look for a man trying to win what appears to be a two-person race for mayor. I’m not even implying any wrongdoing in any of this business, but that’s even closer to the point. It was going to be hard to polish this turd for the public already, without the mayor passing this gas around. Your one job is to not look suspicious.

I asked councillor and mayoral challenger Ron Cannan if he went.

“Cindy and I were invited to attend the Eldorado’s 100th Anniversary Gala. However, given the ongoing litigation regarding the expropriation process, I did not believe it would be prudent for us to attend the event. As a result, we respectfully declined the invitation.

I can therefore confirm that we were not in attendance.”

Gotta hand it to him — that’s the right answer.

No other councillor was confused about this — it was obvious they shouldn’t go. The only other councillor to hob with these big nobbers was, to no one’s surprise — Coun. Maxine DeHart. DeHart has made a career out of these sorts of events and it made sense for her to be there.

It’s part of her “media” job and also her hotelier job and also why she’s constantly in some form of conflict of interest, declared or not, known or not — all these jobs get lost in one big jumble. I’m not sure that gets her a pass with voters but not those already supporting her. Well where else did they think Maxine DeHart would be?

But of course it’s Tom again. This is the mayor who, out of nowhere, brought in a lobbyist registry for councillors in his first ever term on council. It was some ridiculous theater he promised as a challenger on the way in, no one really knows what to do with it, but is sadly one of the few promises he carried through from beginning to end. It exists. Hooray.

You might also remember Tom’s other campaign hits four years ago, and four years ago deleted. “Ban ads promoting the mayor” and “I will never use your money to promote myself”.

I invited him to explain his decision. He declined.

Instead, he got Natasha Halili-Banks, Lead Communications Strategist – Executive Office | City of Kelowna to toss some word salad at it.

‘Valued business, 100 years, many owners, community history’ etc etc.

Hey Tom, what is this if not “your money to promote myself”?

The tell is the third person writing choice.

“Mayor Dyas attended the Eldorado’s 100th anniversary celebration… Mayor Dyas also knew the previous owners… Mayor Dyas purchased his own ticket.”

AI didn’t answer these questions and neither did Natasha. So Tom gave them to poor Natasha to type out and say on his behalf.

“For clarity, Mayor Dyas purchased his own ticket and did not receive complimentary admission to the event.”

Max DeHart called me immediately. Ron Cannan responded directly and as a mayor would.

Tom telling staff to tell people what he did just makes me giggle.

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Marshall Jones is the editor of iNFOnews.ca. Reach him at mjones@infonews.ca.