2005 Citizen Survey

[John Zeger]

It appears that the Daily Courier is continuing with its right-wing agenda not only in its editorials but also in its reporting. Today's (Sept. 20, 2005) headline reads "Crime tops list of concerns" (in the 2005 Citizens Survey). Was Ron Seymour at the same city council meeting that I attended and did he read the same report? Crime was not the top concern mentioned in the survey . In fact it ranked third behind roadways and transportation (43%) and planning and development (30%). Protective services was mentioned only by 14% of respondents as being the single most important issue facing the city. A similar question with a longer time horizon "What is the single most important issue that the City of Kelowna will face over the next five years?" put population growth, new development, urban planning on top with 25.7% followed by traffic congestion at 24.4% with crime, policing at only 5.1%.
Another interesting question that the survey asked was "Has quality of life in Kelowna improved in the past 3 years?" 47% of respondents answered "no" with 33% saying "yes" and 20% not sure.

So why is the Courier trying to make crime the top issue in Kelowna? The right wing has tried to used public safety throughout history as a red herring to distract people from the real issues of the day. The real issue is that under our present city council our quality of life is declining as manifested by increasing traffic congestion as our city council does the bidding of the developers without putting any controls on the rate of development. As a consequence present residents of the city continue to suffer and it will ony get worse. Councillor Brian Given is trying to make hay out of the crime issue as well because he is hard pressed to defend his record and that of a city council which has allowed the quality of life here to decline.

Trying to grab headlines with crime is one way of selling newspapers and trying to get elected but not a very honest way. Let's tell the people here what's really going on which is that our quality of life, community, and sustainability are being eroded as the present city council recklessly continues to cave in to developers.

[Rick Shea]

There are many other interesting stats mentioned in the report. For example, in response to the question "How safe is Kelowna," the report states

In 2005, 77% feel Kelowna is very
or somewhat safe compared to 89%
in 2004.

Notably, those respondents who feel that Kelowna is "somewhat unsafe" increased from 10% in 2004 to 21% in 2005.

Yet, despite the relatively large decline during the term of our present council in those who feel that Kelowna has adequate policing (from 80% in 2002 to 63% in 2005), population growth, new development, urban planning, and traffic congestion were still identified as the most important issues by a much larger proportion of respondents.

Noteworthy as well is that, in the Bylaw Enforcement section, the new area of "environmental infractions" was overwhelmingly rated as the most important area (97%).