Paying for city ambassador

Kelowna city council has approved a model that will provide funding to help with the cost of the downtown and Rutland ambassador programs.

Where the funds will come from is a question for another day, although some on council did have some ideas.

The ambassador program run through the Downtown Kelowna Association and Uptown Rutland Business Association provides a number of community services including its on-call and clean teams.

While the city has provided funding for the DKA’s ambassador program for several years, it only funded the URBA program this year when the association instituted its own on-call program.

Under the funding model, the city will provide each association with $100,000 or 25 per cent of the overall ambassador budget per year, whichever is greater. Funding would increase by five per cent a year through 2029.

That would work out to a projected amount of $303,000 in 2025 increasing to $369,000 by 2029.

According to community safety director Darren Caul, the program has helped to greatly reduce the number of calls for assistance to the RCMP and bylaw.

“In 2023, the DKA handled 1,667 calls in relation to needles and conducted nearly 10,000 business visits,” said Caul.

“My recollection is they contacted RCMP in about eight per cent of cases.

“They are warding off thousands of calls that otherwise might go to the RCMP or bylaw.”

Paying for the program was of concern to Coun. Ron Cannan who said going to the taxpayers is the easy solution.

“I think we need to be more innovative in finding solutions to fund these models. I think we need to look at it from a different lens,” said Cannan.

Rather than going to the taxpayer, Canaan suggested something called a parking benefit district.

“It is basically a governing body where the revenue from public services, your parking meters, are allowed to be allocated to BIA’s (Business Improvement Areas) so they can use those funds.”

Coun. Luke Stack agreed the city should look at different ways of funding the program especially considering how much it is saving on the “wear and tear” of local police officers.

“Perhaps it may be a slight reduction in the increase in RCMP with some of the funds being directed to some of these programs that are having really good results,” said Stack.

“I do think it is part of a larger review when it comes to how we are going to fund it.

“I certainly can see programs that are getting results should be getting funding and those that aren’t should be reduced in funding.”