Keremeos Village Council spent some time debating the planned management transfer of the Infocentre readerboard operation during the January 7 regular meeting of council.
The village’s reasons for taking over management of the sign seems to be based, in large part, due to the fact that the sign was funded through a “Towns for Tomorrow” grant. The village has also reasoned that they have more staff available to operate the sign on a regular basis. They add that they are not unhappy with the present operation of the sign.
We wonder, then, why transfer management at all? The village admits there will be an expense involved, and along with the transfer of management comes a new policy with a set of nine guidelines governing its use. The policy, covering two pages and invoking an application process which user groups will have to follow, will likely do little to improve the sign’s messaging capability.
Let’s face it - the readerboard’s present usefulness, based on its present location, is to inform the travelling public about regional events. If its use is to be an information board used to inform village residents of municipal messages, it will likely provide little useful function because of its location in the community, since the majority of village residents live east of the sign, and tend to drive east when they leave the village.
We feel the reader board’s original purpose was to enhance tourism and communicate regional special events. In that function, its placement in front of the Infocentre made good sense. So did its operation by Similkameen Country personnel.
Adding a two page list of rules and procedures to the village’s bureaucracy, along with a management swap that will unnecesarily add to staff workloads without providing any noticeable return to residents of the village or the Lower Similkameen- are things that don’t make any sense at all.