OSOYOOS TIMES-March 23, 2011

By Paul Everest - Osoyoos Times

The owner of an Osoyoos water-sports company is questioning
Osoyoos council’s recent decision to award a tender for the use of a portion of
Gyro Beach for water-based activities to another company that has operated on
Osoyoos Lake for the past seven years.

At its March 7 meeting, council agreed to lease out a
portion of the beach to Above the Board (ATB) Watersports from May 15 to Sept.
30 for $3,000.

According to a Town of Osoyoos staff report, ATB’s bid was
the only one that met all of the Town’s criteria for the lease.

Sunflight Parasailing, which has operated at the site for
nearly three decades, and Wakepilot Wakeboarding only agreed to pay $1,500 to the Town in
their bids, even though the Town, in its request for proposals, outlined that
the minimum lease rate for the term is $3,000.

The Town staff report states that the applications from
Sunflight, whose owner was not available for comment, and Wakepilot met all
lease requirements except the lease rate.

Rob Rausch, owner of Wakepilot Wakeboarding, which also bid
for the lease, said it is “perplexing,” however, that council awarded the lease
to a company that operated on the lake between 2004 and 2009 without a business
licence.

“It would be easy to dismiss my concerns with the Gyro Beach
RFP as the bitter griping of someone on the losing end of the award
process,” he said in an email. “However, my concern about the flaws in this
particular award process have more to do with my desire to see the best
possible offerings in terms of accommodations, activities, restaurants and
other related tourist draws in Osoyoos.”

Rausch also sits on the Town’s Lake Recreational and
Commercial Users committee that was formed to provide the Town with direction
on the governance of water-based businesses.

He said he believes council made the decision to award the
lease to ATB because it received inaccurate information from Town staff
regarding one of the letters of reference ATB included in its application
package for the tender.

At the March 7 council meeting, Janette Van Vianen, the Town’s
corporate services director, told council that one of two letters of reference
received in ATB’s application for the lease was from a location in town where
the company had operated for five years.

When Coun. Marg Chadsey asked Van Vianen where that location
was and if it was a business, Van Vianen responded that ATB was operating
through another business located within Town boundaries on Lakeshore Drive.

“The Director of Corporate Services said that the letter came
from a business on Lakeshore Drive,” Rausch said. “To the best of my knowledge,
there is nowhere on Lakeshore Drive that has the proper zoning for commercial
water-based businesses so authoring the reference letter was effectively a
written claim from this business that they too have no regard for Town bylaws!
In spite of this glaring inconsistency, the letter was central to the
Director’s suggestion that ATB win the award.

“It seems like someone on Town staff was just ticking off
boxes. Highest bid? Check. Letter of reference? Check. Take it to council.

Geoff Nickson, who co-owns ATB with his brother Matt, said
his company approached the Town for a business licence in 2004 in order to
conduct water-sport activities such as waterskiing and wakeboarding on the
lake.

But because ATB wasn’t operating from a marina or resort on
the lake, the Town indicated that such a licence wasn’t necessary, he added.

“At that point they were like, you’re not operating from
shore, so you don’t really need a business licence.”

Barry Romanko, the Town’s chief administrative officer, said
no one on Town staff could comment on what happened in 2004.

He added, however, that Town regulations currently state
that any business that operates within Town boundaries and has a corporate
address requires a business licence.

“The town boundary formally extends approximately 100 metres
into the lake,” he said in an email. “That being stated, a person who operates
on the lake and must come into shore to operate a part of their business must
have a Town business licence.”

Romanko also said that ATB was told that if they operated
out of the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen or Haynes Point Provincial
Park, they wouldn’t need a business licence.

Last year, ATB had a business licence from the Town and
operated from the Safari Beach Marina.

Prior to 2010, however, ATB did not have a base of
operations on the shore of the lake.

Instead, people could call the company to arrange an outing
and the company would pick up clients at area hotels, campgrounds or public
lake accesses.

Nickson said the company would park its boats after hours at
a private home on Lakeshore Drive, but ATB did not operate from that home.

It was this private homeowner, he said, that provided the
Town with a letter of reference for ATB’s lease application.

After approaching the Town in 2004, Nickson added, ATB
didn’t reapply for a licence in subsequent years because it was understood a
licence wasn’t needed as long as insurance and other certifications were in
place.

Romanko said the Town was aware that ATB was operating on
the lake without a business licence prior to last year.

He said, however, that because the company was operating
with a licence last year and ATB’s bid for the lease met all of the Town’s
criteria, Town staff recommended that council accept ATB’s application.

Rausch’s concerns about the company operating on the lake
without a licence for seven years don’t matter, he added.

Council had originally put an RFP out for the Gyro Beach
lease in December, but Mayor Stu Wells said none of the three bidders met the
criteria for the lease at that time and so council directed staff to put the
RFP back out with “clearer parameters.”

He echoed Romanko’s statement that what ATB did
before last year doesn’t matter because the company had a licence last year.

Two years ago, the Town turned down a request
from a similar company for a business licence because they were not operating
from a marina or resort in town.

At the time, Romanko said the Town could not
provide Desert Dream Rentals with a licence because they were operating out of
their home.

He said the only zoning that could apply to this situation
is commercial marina, but waterfront access is required in order to apply the
zoning.

“(The) Town is in a situation where we don’t really have a
zone for (this) type of activity,” Romanko said at the time.

The Town is currently working on establishing
policies that would govern lake-use activities.

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