This Sunday will mark one year since Sue McKortoff was elected Mayor of Osoyoos. Town council reporter Roy Wood sat down with McKortoff this week at the town office to chat about her first year in the mayor’s chair. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation.

 

Question: What’s been the biggest surprise about being mayor?

Answer: The time it takes. I have no idea how someone who already had a full-time job could do the job of mayor. The mayor gets invited to absolutely everything. Someone told me: “You have to pick and choose; you can’t go to everything.” I try to if I can. But what surprised me is how much time it takes to do the job.

How much time do you spend?

I’ve never really figured it out. But, many days I spend all day in meetings. And there are three or four of those a week. And that’s in Kelowna and Penticton and here. Some days I don’t have things going on and it kind of surprises me that I can get the vacuuming done. I do find it’s kind of like a full-time job. If someone asked how much do you get paid an hour, its probably very small. (The mayor is paid an annual stipend of $22,772 plus a $100/day per diem for out-of-town meetings.)

Are there pressures that you didn’t expect?

Not as many as I thought. There are certainly people who phone me about various issues. I know that I don’t know all the answers, but I do know how to help them find the answers. We have a wonderful staff, whom I find extremely helpful and knowledgeable. I try to get back to people. I answer emails quickly so I don’t forget about them. To me that is my job, to try to help with answers not always to know them.

Any extra challenges being a rookie mayor on a council that includes three out of four rookie councillors?

It takes a while for people to understand what council can do. The legislation, the hoops you have to go through. If someone has an idea and says, “Let’s do this,” we have corporate services director Janette Van Vienen and chief administrative officer Barry Romanko who are very knowledgeable and will advise us on what can be done and what we need to do in order to enact something.

How would you describe the working relationships amoung members of council?

I think we have a very good relationship. We are all volunteers and we are working together for the benefit of the town. We have fun. But we each have our own things to do and charities that we support and yet we can talk on a respectful, interested level. I see them a lot. We meet every two weeks and often at other things. I have my own set of friends. I don’t go over to their houses, not that I wouldn’t. We’ve each got our own worlds and we come together for this.

How would you describe your leadership style?

I’ve been the leader of other things before I became mayor. I have a good attitude. I’m a positive person. I have an ability to have things organized because I’m a teacher and teachers can juggle all kinds of balls. I try to include everybody in decision-making. I don’t try to overrule anyone, but I don’t mind giving my opinion. I appreciate that each of us comes from a different background and has a different point of view. I’m pretty positive on things. I’m a doer. I get things done.

What do think have been your main accomplishments?

The fire hall has taken 10 years. There was a lot to do over the past year once we knew we could get the money. I’ve been at many meetings over the past year.

The Water Science Forum was an Osoyoos initiative and was really positive thing for the town. I did quite a lot of the organizing and I’m really proud of the fact that we got that organized.

Emergency social services. We recently did a mock exercise here using all the resources from up and down the valley – fire, ambulance, you name it. We came up with a situation where a truck had gone off the road and there’s a gas leak. We had an all-day meeting looking all of the issues and how would we deal with them. It just made us a little better prepared in case something happens.

The Highway 3 Coalition includes all the mayors from Hope to the Alberta border. We met at UBCM in September and also in Castlegar this summer. We look at issue that affect the lower Trans Canada. We’re now trying to get it branded through the department of transport as “the electric highway.” Many of the communities have charging stations for electric cars, including three at the Watermark here and two that the town has put in.

What are going to be the key issues in the next three years?

One key issue facing us is water restrictions. Vancouver is already starting off next year at stage 1. The problem is lack of consistency amoung jurisdictions. That was an issue at the Okanagan Basin Water Board meeting last week. As part of our drought planning we need to work toward more consistency.

Water is going to be a huge issue. And not just what we have here in our aquifers. Water is water. Our water is really a global issue. If up the valley they don’t have enough water, guess who’s going to suffer in the long run. It’s going to be us at the bottom. People take what they need without thinking of the consequences. We need to have a plan on how we are going to start off the year. I don’t think we can ever go back to saying anybody can water as much as they want for as long as they want. We just have to be conscious of what we are doing. It’s a huge issue and its not going away.

And we need to make sure we look after our sewage well. We spend big money on that. Anything that has to do with water has to be important.

We also need to protect our agricultural land that’s another of my things. Farmers’ markets are so important. Shopping locally, using what we have at the markets.

Downtown revitalization and what we do to support our businesses is another thing that’s really important.

What can the town do to support business?

Our local business taxes are the sixth lowest in the province at just one-point-six times municipal taxes. So we make it easy for business to be able to exist here. We’ve looked at parking to try to make things easier. We have a wonderful planning department and a wonderful building inspector who will try making it easier for people to do business.

Are there any levers that council can pull to attract jobs?

You know, it’s not council’s job to bring jobs to Osoyoos. I think our job is to make this a good place for people to live and to work. And we’ve got lots of them moving here, especially from Alberta. We’re willing to talk to anybody and look at ideas. But can we bring jobs here? No, but we can provide a good environment and keep up our infrastructure and look at our water and our sewer and our parks and lighting and street maintenance and that kind of thing. I think were doing a good job of that.

What do you see as the future of the Osoyoos airport?

I don’t know. Personally, I don’t think we need an airport here. There’s one in Oroville, one in Oliver, one in Penticton. I can go 45 minutes and park my car for $15 a week in Penticton and go to Vancouver. That’s just me. Council absolutely has to look at is it the best use of any money, because it could be very expensive if they want to expand it. It means looking at agricultural land, which the airport needs for expansion. I’ve been pretty vocal that I don’t think it’s a high priority. Councillor Mike Campol is the council representative on the committee. He’s the right person to gather the information for council.

What do you think of the provincial government’s intentions paper on the national park?

I emailed Linda Larson and the minister right away saying thank you for trying to compromise and looking at all the issues. I think it’s going to take a while to actually come up with something that’s workable. I’m not crazy about the three-area proposal, but we would rather see something there. Not only to protect species and the flora and fauna, but also because it’s good economic development for us. We need to look at animal corridors and accommodating ranchers and that sort of thing. I listened to a rancher the other day and what he said didn’t seem to make sense. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, but I sure hope the process continues.

How is your relationship with the Osoyoos Indian Band?

Very good. They’re involved in the fire hall, of course. We share all kind of things. They have a wonderful resort up there that we all use and we try to push everything. Not just or desert centre but Nk’Mip, too.  Chief Clarence Louie is an interesting character. I see him every once in a while, but I don’t know him that well. When he got elected I emailed him and said “well done.” I hope that we can get together every once in a while.

How’s your relationship with Oliver?

Excellent. I have lots of time for Mayor Ron Hovanes. I think he is very nice, kind and interested man. He’s absolutely terrific for that job. I have lots of time for Terry Schafer. I see those guys every two weeks because we are all at RDOS meetings together. We invited Oliver council down and had a dinner meeting with them and now it’s their turn. We don’t feel a sense of competition. We have a very good relationship.

The Osoyoos Museum’s plans to move up town have been on hold for five years. Can you talk a bit about that?

We had to deal with the museum and Home Builders, which occupies the building that taxpayers bought for a new museum. If Home Builders had moved we don’t think the museum – and they have kind of admitted this – they really weren’t financially ready to move in. They couldn’t have gone in next year. I don’t think they had enough money for that.

I had many people yelling at me that I wasn’t considering the arts in town. But, my big thing is compromise. We had to look at all the issues and come up with what was best for the town. It’s our job to come up with the best decision. We also needed to protect some of the jobs that were at stake. It was difficult decision. Fortunately the museum has board president Mat Hassen and museum manager Kara Burton. They are huge assets.

I know some people have said, “Well, I’m not waiting another five years I’m pulling my money out. We hope that will sort itself out and people will rethink that.”