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Penticton Council supports COVID-19 Safe Restart Task Force recommendations

The COVID-19 Safe Restart Task Force has put forward its ideas, and Penticton City Council has listened.

Council has given its support to a list of high, medium and low recommendations, with the goal of ensuring Penticton residents and businesses are in the best position possible to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The Task Force determined these recommendations provide the best opportunity for immediate benefit to our community, while setting the community up for a quick restart,” said General Manager of Community Services Anthony Haddad. “Industries that were significantly impacted during the pandemic were identified with short-term actions, and longer-term priorities were applied to make sure our community is well prepared once restrictions are lifted.”

<who> Photo Credit: City of Penticton </who> A task force recommendation is to allow free parking downtown during events.

The Task Force focused their interest on immediate actions, such as events, outdoor use, future planning, housing, crime and social needs. The group determined these were the most important areas in prioritizing funding and establishing recommendations that will spark a safe restart of Penticton’s economy and trigger future financial investment.

One of the big ticket items is to support the South Okanagan Events Centre recovery with a big ticket event. The idea is to create a fund to enable greater risk to be taken to attract larger acts to SOEC that will provide a big benefit to the business community once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. A total of $250,000 will be available to draw from.

$15,000 will be put toward a shop/spend local marketing campaign, and $40,000 of business grant money will be available to support innovative business ideas. The city also put money aside to enhance Penticton’s image, to offer free downtown parking during events, and to provide operational support for businesses.

Overall, Council supported the allocating of $97,500 to help implement the Task Force’s high priorities and $347,000 to implement their medium priorities.

In addition, Council directed the City’s Safety and Security Advisory Committee to oversee housing, crime and social recommendations and directed staff to bring forward amendments to the Fees and Charges Bylaws to waive sidewalk use fees for 2021.

“When faced with creating a strategy to recover from a period of tough times, bringing together the right people to talk about options and ideas is only one part of the solution,” said Penticton Mayor John Vassilaki. “Just as important is identifying how those options and ideas will be prioritized and in what order. I would like to thank all members of the Task Force who gave their time to this important undertaking”.

To review the list of all recommendations by priority rank, click here



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