Press Release #3

As the president of the Historic O’Keefe Ranch Society, I have to reply to the community about

the statement made by the Mayor of Vernon in the Global News interview he participated in.

Inflating the costs required to keep the Ranch alive seems to be a tactic the Mayor and City

council are using to justify their decision to sell or dispose of the O’Keefe Ranch.

After turning down our 20-year lease proposal that we sent to Council, they then asked if we

would put together a one-year proposal which might be extended to two if required.

The board decided that if the city was willing to participate in the cost of operating the Ranch

which would include hiring a couple of staff to help operate the Ranch, we would put a proposal

together.

Along with our proposal we requested that the City appoint a staff member to be a part of our

board to vote on spending issues as well as a Councillor to attend all our board meetings so that

knowledge of the Ranch progress and spending would be for-front, when discussions were held

about the Ranch operations.

The overall cost that the city was asked to put forward to help operate the Ranch for a year was

$150,000 dollars not the $550,000 put forward by the Mayor. This of course did not include the

capital costs needed to upgrade and repair the property which would probably have to be done

over the next 5 to 10 years.

 This of course would not be necessary now, if the City had kept the property up over the

past 30 years as most responsible landlords do.

The Mayor and Council seems to have forgotten that the Ranch has been operated successfully

for the last two seasons without any operating funds from them at all, and only $10,000 per year

in capital expenditures, which is part of their contract. Even so $20,000 of the contract money

was held back for two years of Ranch operations, meaning the Society had to spend some of their

operating funds to help keep the buildings up.

This was done with dedication and love for the Historic Ranch by the volunteers and Board

Members who worked their butts off to keep the City owned Ranch alive for all to enjoy. Again,

I stress no extra funding other then the insurance payment, from The Mayor and his Council.

Again, there are always two sides to a story such as this. As a community we need to let the city

know that we are not going to take their information presented to us as the honest truth because it

is not always the factual truth in my opinion.

Their lack of transparency on a number of issues including the Ranch, are the reason we have a

number of new members of the community running for council and for Mayor, with the intention

of repairing some of the ways these issues have been handled.

Again, they are elected to make decisions, but transparency and public input should always be a

part of the   decision-making process on these larger issues, effecting the citizens they represent.

Again, the opinions of their citizen’s seem to be unheard or ignored by the present council.

  I know it is a hard job as a council member to please everyone; I am also sure they have support

for a number of issues they have tackled over the past years but discussions before and not after a

decision of this importance would be beneficial to all.

We should also remember the organization, businesses or developers that the city may be dealing

with may not want to continue with behind door negotiations with the city knowing the way the

community feels about saving the Historical O’Keefe Ranch.

So, to help our quest to save the historical Ranch for future generations, please go to the O’Keefe

website and sign the online petition that has already grown to a number the present and future

council will find hard to ignore.

Respectfully Submitted

 Douglas MacGregor

President

Historic O’Keefe Ranch and Interior Society

250 306 9530 dgmac7@telus.net