Keremeos Village Council held their last meeting of the present term on Monday, November 21. The next meeting of village council will see a new mayor and two new councillors, as Walter Despot retires from the mayor’s seat after nine years, as does councillor Ed Minshull.New faces on council include Arlene Arlow and Jeremy Evans, who will join incumbent councillors Charlene Cowling and Gary Thielmann.
Keremeos’ new mayor is Manfred Bauer.
Council had light business for their final meeting, dealing with an approval for a detour in the village during the upcoming Christmas parade. Council approved a temporary shut down of Seventh Avenue from 5:30 until 7 p.m., in addition to allowing the parking of floats along Fourth Street and Veterans Avenue.
The Municipal Insurance Association made a request to the board to see if they were interested in extending the risk management program for another year, a decision that council deferred to the next meeting.
The mayor delivered a summary address describing the changes he has seen in Keremeos since his arrival in the village in the 1960’s, extolling on the virtues of volunteerism and its importance in moving small communities like Keremeos forward. In his closing remarks, he noted the 50 per cent turnout in voters to last Saturday’s municipal election, commenting that “the 50 per cent that didn’t vote have no right to bitch.”
The village solidified its Christmas closure policy with a motion to adopt. The village office and the public works yard will be closed between Christmas day and New Year’s day. Employees will take vacation, accumulated time, or time off without pay at this time. Essential services will continue to be provided, while tax and business license payments received on the first working day following the Christmas closure will be credited as Dec. 31 for the purpose of calculating interest or penalties.
A business regualtion amendment that will change the due date of business licenses from Dec. 31 of each year to Jan. 31, in order to ease accounting issues, passed, rounding out the evening for the village’s business.