1) Well, one thing you didn't miss is the rain, and if so you'll get a chance to see it everyday for the rest of the week. Possibility of snow for the weekend has the folks at Big White thinking positively now that the official opening to the ski season here has been pushed back to the beginning of December, snow permitting. Mercury is expected to dip below zero in Kelowna this weekend, so the rain may turn to snow, but at higher elevations the snow is likely to be more noticeable.
2) That didn't take long. After efforts by Kelowna City Hall to get the two sides in the transit strike together in the same room today, a tentative new deal was hammered out between the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1722 bus drivers and First Canada, the company that runs the regional bus service. A sigh of relief for those of us in Kelowna who rely on transit to get around town, from local students to the fiscally challenged to the physically disabled. The question now will be why couldn't this have been done sooner?
3) West Kelowna council are meeting tonight, and one of the more prominent items on the agenda figures to be a report from BC Hydro on a route for a new transmission line from the substation in Merritt to West Kelowna. Past forest fires have illustrated how West Kelowna is in a precarious position with only one transmission line providing power to the city. It gets shut own by a fire and the city has no power. Three different routes have been studied so far and council is apparently not thrilled with Hydro's preferred route option at this point.
4) The fentanyl issue just won't go away, hitting home in the Central Okanagan as a 43-uyear-old Penticton woman died from a suspected drug overdose on Monday. It was one of at least two overdoses reported in that city on Monday, and comes on the heels of a 74 per cent surge in drug overdose deaths so far this year.
5) A new demographic study for Kelowna shows the stereotype of our city being a magnet for retirees is starting to not reflect a changing reality. For example, the largest age-group in 2014-15 for new migrants was the 25-34 cohort, a group associated with first time homeownership, students and young families, according to a new report.