With the goal of ensuring the City of Penticton’s residents and businesses are in the best position possible to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, Council has given their support to a list of high, medium and low recommendations, put forward by the COVID-19 Safe Restart Task Force.
Established by Council in December 2020, the Task Force focused their interest on immediate actions, events, outdoor use, future planning, housing, crime and social needs as the areas deemed most important for the purpose of prioritizing funding and establishing recommendations that will spark a safe restart of Penticton’s economy and trigger future financial investment.
At the centre of Council’s support was their green light to allocate $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.
To review the list of all recommendations by priority rank, click here.
“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.”
“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”.