By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle
This fall’s election may still be months away but that hasn’t stopped one Osoyoos resident from announcing his candidacy for the position of Mayor with promises of restoring what he says is the town’s broken “mojo”.
A long time visitor since his childhood and now a permanent resident for the past couple of years following his retirement from the coast, Scott Armstrong says he wants to see Osoyoos thrive and reckons its needs “a good polish”. This is something that involves both infrastructure fixes and a new style of leadership at Town Hall he claims.
“I’ve just noticed the decline in sort of the mojo of the town, the disconnect between the business people and the City [Town] Hall and just generally the population. They’re just frustrated with with what’s going on, and I really care, I like this place. . . I want to see it thrive. I think it needs a good polish and we can fix it,” he told the Times Chronicle in an interview.
For qualifications he says he’s both run and built businesses in the commercial glass and glazing sector and is currently the president of Sole Vita strata.
Building a bigger tax base is a key priority for Armstrong, something he reiterates a number of times, but he is quick to acknowledge that the number one priority is fixing the water and sewer.
“Secondly, is more development to bring a bigger tax base in. But in order to do that, we’re going to need to fix the town hall and fix the planning department, fix the building department so people aren’t waiting for inspections coming out of the RDOS and different inspector planning and all that kind of stuff. So we need a more of a connect with the developers and the builders and just the people at Town Hall.”
When asked the question as to whether he envisages a sort of “house-cleaning” of the town’s administration should he get elected (and gain enough council support) he said it wasn’t “a fair statement”.
“I think from what I’ve heard, more than anything, is leadership’s a problem. People are quitting. A lot of apparently talented people are quitting. And people don’t generally just quit their jobs, they usually quit their bosses, they usually quit the leadership that’s in there.”
The Times Chronicle pointed out that for the majority of staff who quit over the last couple of years, the number one reason cited was the bullying and abusive environment created by a small number of Osoyoos residents, spurred on by defacto leaders of the property tax hike protests which at one point even saw a hangman’s noose make an appearance.
“Yeah, I mean, I’ve heard some of it. I mean, I don’t know that it was fair, that they took the brunt of it,” he responded, saying in his view it’s the job of leadership to stand in front of such individuals to deal with complaints.
Returning to the issue of staff Armstrong says, “everybody that’s there currently needs to have a fair chance to to show what they can do.”
He says his management style is more collaborative. “You hire good people, and you expect those good people to do their jobs and have the flexibility and creativity to do them right and not oversee, micromanage everything they’re doing. Sort of guide them down the path is sort of more my approach,”
As for the critical water and sewer, Armstrong says he’d like see what has been done so far and get up to speed on the issue.
“I’m not a professional at water treatments or plants. I don’t know everything about them. I would want to learn everything I could, because I’m the one at the end of the day with the council that’s going to make this huge decision on how much money is spent. So you want to know everything you can about it.”
As for growing the tax base Armstrong says this will hinge on developers and clearly in his cross sights is “motel row”.
“We have to find a way to work with the developers and things in this town to create a larger tax base. It’s going to be tricky to make sure that we can grow but maintain what we all love about the town.
“If you look just down on motel row here, I mean, let’s not sugar coat anything. There’s a lot of those properties that it’s time. To be honest, we’ve got to try to find a year round economy. We are a tourist town, that’s not going to change, but we need to find it year round.”
His strategy would involve helping developers redevelop their property, and encouraging “stratified rooms and things like that,” like Watermark Beach Resort he suggests. “We’re open for business, so bring us your ideas, let’s work together and collaboratively let’s get this done,” he says with a clearly election-ready mantra.
He cites another example of tapping the growing pickleball craze (for the record he is a pickleball player) and building facilities to make Osoyoos into a tournament destination. When it’s suggested to him that residents might object to being further taxed to build such facilities, he says it could be done through a public private partnership.
Indeed he’s keen on this model for something that will perhaps be his most popular idea – a primary care facility in Osoyoos.
What he’s eyeing is the type recently opened in Penticton which takes the management out of the equation essentially allowing doctors to be doctors.
Armstrong noted that based on a conversation with his doctor in Vancouver, “the younger doctors today don’t want the responsibility or the headache of running a business. They want to come in and be doctors. They want to do their doctoring, but they don’t want the administration, they don’t want to hiring staff, they don’t want to have a lease.”
This again is not a short-term program, something he acknowledges, but adds: “ I’d like to see that happen here. I think we can, I think we can do anything you put your mind to. I’m a guy that I don’t want to hear why we can’t. I want to hear why we can, or how we can.”
