Top Stories – Nov 7 – New City Council

Kelowna’s new city council gets to work this week. It begins with the swearing-in ceremony today for mayor-elect Tom Dyas and the 8 councillors at KCT. Regional District appointments will be revealed and gifts will be given to outgoing mayor Colin Basran and councillors Ryan Donn, Gail Given and Brad Sieben. The first council meeting will be next Monday.

Power crews were finally able to start putting their feet up after Friday’s snowfall, then it started again. Heavy, wet snow landing on trees that still had a lot of leaves is not a good combination and thousands of customers were without light and heat for varying lengths of time. BC Hydro crews on the west side of the lake and Fortis on the east were kept busy for hours.

Investigators are looking into the cause of a fire in Coldstream Sunday morning that left a home a total loss. It’s believed to have started in the garage of a house on Cherry Lane, and witnesses say they heard an explosion at the time. Three people lived in the home, but they were not injured.

We live in one of the fastest growing areas in Canada, yet the province has shut down 3 ambulances in the Central Okanagan. Paramedics work as hard as they can, but fewer of them could mean that firefighters, who are often first on-scene for a medical call, may have to stay longer. No comment yet from BC Emergency Health Services.

The prolonged heat wave that sent temperature records tumbling across BC in June 2021 underscored the importance of climate-resilient housing.
While the requirements for new buildings in BC lead the country when it comes to energy efficiency, the bulk of the homes that will exist in the coming decades have already been built. A Net-Zero home is encased with insulation for a very high airtight rating and has highly efficient doors and windows.

This is the final day of campaigning before the United States holds its mid-term elections tomorrow. In case you were wondering what’s at stake, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested. There are also elections for governor in 39 States and Territories.

Interior Health has issued a drug alert for Kelowna. A pink and purple chalky street drug being sold as a fentanyl downer, contains high benzos, which negates the effectiveness of Naloxone and possesses a high risk of fatal overdose. As always, I-H encourages users to not use alone, to use a safe consumption site, and to have their substances checked.

Health ministers from all 13 provinces and territories, along with their federal counterpart, are set to meet in Vancouver today and tomorrow. A family doctor who works in BC and Alberta says patients who don’t get the care they need before ending up in overburdened emergency rooms should be a focus for quick action. He says he will need to refill some prescriptions during a 10-day vacation because there won’t be anyone to cover for him.

Kelowna’s unemployment rate rose on a month-over-month basis in October. Stats Canada reports the local rate was 4.3 percent, up from 4.1 in September.

Sports

In the WHL, the Kelowna Rockets beat Kamloops 3-1 on the weekend and wait for a visit from Prince George on Wednesday.

BC won the CFL West semi final 30-16 over Calgary and will play Winnipeg in the final on Sunday. In the East, Montreal beat Hamilton and will play Toronto in the final.

The Monday Night Football game is in New Orleans with the Saints hosting Baltimore.

World Series champions for this year are the Houston Astros after they took the Phillies 4 games to 2.