Osoyoos Town Hall (File photo)

Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

Town of Osoyoos staff are looking at options for flexibility with due dates for municipal taxes.

“Town staff will be discussing those options with council, that would be flexibility on due dates for taxes, and of course also flexibility for penalties for late payments,” said, Gina MacKay, director of planning and development services for the Town of Osoyoos. “Staff are looking at options and then of course we have to take them to council to implement.”

The town was also in the process of updating the local business license bylaw, which would have included incremental increases to business license fees, but “obviously that’s way on the back burner now,” MacKay said.

“We will wait until we are well down the road of recovery before we look at implementing any new business license bylaws,” MacKay said.

With some Okanagan municipalities seeing layoffs of staff — with about 20 per cent of staff let go in the City of Penticton — Osoyoos is preparing for the possibility, but has not officially let any staff go yet.

Some Town of Osoyoos staff have amicably decided to not come to work for the time being, Mayor Sue McKortoff said.

“Lots of other places we know have had to lay off staff. Our directors and our CAO are looking at this,” McKortoff said. “It is definitely on our radar to look at that and make best use of a certain percentage, maybe, we’re not sure yet.”

As a tourism town, Osoyoos is taking a big hit, the mayor said.

“Tourism is a huge, huge concern in our town. It’s what really keeps us going is our fruit industry and tourism. So we’re taking a big hit on that, we know that,” McKortoff said.

McKortoff continues to be on conference calls with the ministry, the province, local businesses, the Okanagan Basin Water Board and many groups adjusting to the crisis on a daily and weekly basis.

“The best thing we can all do is support each other and share what we’re doing. We can’t solve every problem, but we can at least keep talking about them and hopefully this will help to ease things when this nonsense is over,” McKortoff said.