Laura Thurnheer

Kelowna council forum #1 at Revelry

Castanet and Revelry, with ForChange Kelowna · Sept. 16, 2026 · Full video of this forum on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

1. Opening statement

   So the issues that I see in the city are crime and safety, like everyone is talking about, but I'm worried about the citizens themselves and the businesses [...] I want compassionate care for our homeless and our addicted, but I do want to focus on our citizens.

2. Opening statement

   Traffic. I was driving around today and it was pretty crazy just trying to get anywhere, so obviously I have concerns about traffic. Infrastructure, keeping up with the pace of growth.

3. Opening statement

   I'm interested in the Performing Arts Centre, a convention centre, a second crossing, a not-for-profit shared centre.

4. What does leadership mean for you on council?

   But as a leader and a representative of the people, your job is to provide oversight. Your job is to ask difficult questions [...] So you may promise that you're going to reduce taxes, but realistically, you're going to be looking at a budget and working with a group of nine people.

5. A council decision you disagreed with, and what you would have done differently

   Is the number of variances that are being provided. So height variances, parking variances [...] The other one I really seriously had a concern with with the previous council was the 99-year lease to a developer to develop the old police station. [...] And that site should be used for a performing arts center or a convention center or something for the benefit of the entire community

6. An area of city spending that deserves greater scrutiny

   The answer is policing. [...] Policing is a tremendous amount of our budget. City council, thank you Mohini, has added officers in the last few years trying to deal with some of our crime and safety problems, but we need more policing. [...] But I do believe as taxpayers we do need to look at alternatives of a major piece of our budget, which is policing.

7. What would you do differently about crime and safety that hasn't been done before?

   For me, I think we need to shift back a little bit more to the right and we need to refocus back on citizens rights and business rights. [...] We shifted a little far to the left of supporting our homeless and our addicted and I think we need more enforcement and we need to have the community support of that enforcement.

8. What would you do differently about crime and safety that hasn't been done before?

   And I'd like to see a lot more of IH working with our bylaws people and enforcement people.