The last hurdle has been cleared for West Kelowna to begin the process to become a city.
West Kelowna council can now seek provincial approval to be reclassified as a city instead of a district municipality, after only 166 elector response forms were returned objecting to the move in the alternate approval process.
A total of 2,306 forms (representing 10 per cent of eligible voters) were needed to force the issue to go to a referendum or be canceled by council.
Council is expected to approve the request to the province to make West Kelowna at its May 26 meeting.
The municipality’s Letters Patent will need to be changed and Mayor Doug Findlater said Wednesday he expects the switch over to be complete by the fall.
On Tuesday, West Kelowna CAO Jim Zaffino said applying for approval of city status is a formality now as the province had already indicated its support for the move and invited West Kelowna to apply for the change.
He described the process as now on “auto pilot.”
