Meetings, A BBQ and A Parade

Bren and I with Boundary-Similkameen MLA Linda Larson in her backyard in Oliver, BC Sunday, June 9, 2019.

​June 2019 was a bit more like a ‘normal’ month of activity for me. Well, that is compared to recent months, anyway. This month had a total of 17 meetings/activities scheduled with one of those getting cancelled and another one missed due to a time conflict. There was actually one week during June where I only had two appointments on the calendar but as has been the case since getting elected, I have one really full week a month with another not so busy and two that can go either way. Here’s a breakdown of my activities in June 2019:
 
Regular Public Meetings
 
Town Council had two regular meetings this past month (June 3 and June 17) with the first of them preceded by a Public Hearing. There was also an afternoon Committee of the Whole meeting on June 19 where we sat through three different delegations. What made this meeting even more interesting was that it was held in the Library Meeting Room in the centre of the downtown core.
 
Other Meetings
 
There was a cross section of different meetings that I attended during the month related to my committee/portfolio appointments as well as other additional meetings. This is the list:
 
Tuesday, June 13 – Primary Care Workshop, Penticton
Tuesday, June 18 – 3 PM – Princeton Health Care Steering Committee
Tuesday, June 18 – 7 PM – Princeton Exhibition Association *
Wednesday, June 19 – Community Foundation *
Thursday, June 20 – Princeton Museum
Tuesday, June 25 – Princeton Parade Meeting *
Thursday, June 21, Similkameen Valley Planning Society, Princeton
 
(* denotes meeting attended alone. All other meetings include members of Town Council and Staff).
 
Other Activities
 
In addition to the ‘regular’ list of meetings I attended during the month of June I also participated in a few special events. Each of these I was able to take my wife Brenda along which was fun for me. I sometimes think that spouses and partners get ‘forgotten’ or ‘left out’ when they are in reality as much a part of the family of Town Hall as the elected officials are. The two events Bren joined me at included:
 
Sunday, June 9 – Boundary Similkameen MLA Linda Larson BBQ, Oliver *
Thursday, June 27 – Farewell Dinner for Museum Manager Terry Malanchuk, Princeton
 
The Larson BBQ was an easy one for us to attend as it was taking place just blocks away from our weekly vending location in the Oliver Indoor Flea Market. At that event, Larson announced her retirement from politics at the end of this term.
 
The Farewell Dinner for Terry Malanchuk was for a pal of ours we’ve known for several years who has chosen to take a career change and head back to his former stomping grounds in Chilliwack. Both Bren and I got to know Terry and Tamara in the time they were in town with our history dating back to when we owned the Similkameen News Leader. I had recently been working closely with Terry when I was Princeton Museum President prior to getting elected to Town Council.
 
Highlights
 
There were two events that took place this month that were most definitely highlights for me. They were:
 
Friday, June 21 – Indigenous Peoples Day – Signing of the MOU between the Town, RDOS and USIB
Saturday, June 29 – Princeton Days Parade, MCing the Parade
 
I was proud to be part of the process with other members of Town Council, the RDOS and USIB which reached an apex with the signing of the MOU between the parties at a small but significant ceremony during the National Indigenous Peoples Day celebration in Veterans Square. Brenda was able to attend this with me as well and was responsible for the photo that accompanied the official press release that was widely distributed the following week.
 
And the Princeton Parade was truly an amazing milestone for me. The Town of Princeton was working alongside Princeton Rotary and Chamber of Commerce to help build the annual parade into a bigger and better event. One of the suggestions was to have an MC at Veterans Square to more or less provide a description of the entries as they passed by. During organizing meetings, the role of MC was basically handed to me and virtually minutes before the parade started it was decided that I would be riding on the historic Town Fire truck with the rest of Town Council with a wireless mic. I was to ‘provide flavour’ and once reaching Veterans Square I would hop off and continue with the commentary. It was a lot of fun and I’m sure the new twist we added to the parade will not be forgotten anytime soon. I was actually going to use some notes but ended up adlibbing the entire event which was a little easier than I expected and allowed me to have a little fun with some of the entries.