This October, organized slates will ask you to pick a team. Here's what I'm asking instead. I'm a 25-year-old electrician who pays rent in this market, and I'm running hardest for the people council hears from least — renters, young families, tradespeople, the workers who keep this city running. More homes people can actually afford. Real help on our streets. Good jobs you don't need a degree for. A downtown worth staying for. I built this platform at Penticton doorsteps, not from a party playbook — and there's a serious plan behind every promise.
Real challenges need practical solutions — and real ambition. Here's where I'll focus my energy on council: eight issues, each with a concrete plan to move Penticton forward. Big goals, and a serious plan behind every one.
01
Housing & Affordability
Penticton needs more housing — and faster. I rent in this market myself, so this one's personal. I'll push to expand the city's fast-track building permit program to small multi-unit and missing-middle housing, publish permit performance data monthly so progress is visible, and use my construction industry experience to cut red tape without cutting corners.
Penticton has done its part on supportive housing — more than 175 units across the city. What we've never received is the treatment system meant to go with it: not a single detox bed in town, and residential treatment that amounts to 25 beds, men only. My focus is the missing half — inpatient detox and residential treatment beds in the South Okanagan, including beds for women, connected to the housing we've already built — plus expanded Car 40 crisis response. Housing and treatment only work together. Penticton's next investment belongs to treatment.
Penticton's industrial sector generates up to $1 billion in annual economic impact — but it's losing land, facing doubled taxes, and getting squeezed by rising power costs. These are the best-paying jobs in town that don't require a degree — and they're how my generation builds a life here instead of leaving. I'll champion existing industry with an industrial land strategy and a revived Economic Investment Zone, and pursue one ambitious goal: making Penticton a centre for UAV (drone) development and testing. I won't promise the hub. I'll promise the homework.
Penticton used to have a real nightlife. I want it back. A formal entertainment district with predictable rules for venues and patios, a harder push to land conventions in the shoulder season, less red tape for sidewalk events and pop-ups, and an Economic Investment Zone downtown to get businesses investing in patios, facades, and venues again.
Forty per cent of what goes into our landfill is food waste. Penticton gets over 2,000 hours of sunshine a year and owns its own electric grid. I have concrete plans for a green bin program and solar on every city roof — and both save money.
Penticton's property taxes have climbed four years straight — 9.5% in 2023, 5.31% in 2024, 7.88% in 2025, 6.26% in 2026. Compounded, that's a 32% increase in four years. I have a plan: put the casino revenue the city already collects to work, cut the city's own power costs with solar on city buildings, and chase every available grant before asking taxpayers for a cent.
Penticton has absorbed a lot of road changes in a short time — bike lanes, concrete barriers, narrowed lanes, lost parking — and people are frustrated. I'll keep investing in the infrastructure this city actually needs: pipes, paving, safe crossings, the $10.4 million renewal gap the city's own budget admits to. But I'd slow the rollout of new traffic calming and street reconfigurations, let Penticton live with what's already been built, measure how it's genuinely performing, and rebuild public trust before the next redesign.
Nearly a third of Penticton is 65 or older — the city asked seniors what they needed back in 2021, wrote it all down in an Age-Friendly Action Plan, and then let it gather dust. I'll dust it off: accessibility audits, public washrooms, better transit connections, and real advocacy for long-term care beds.
"People ask me if I'm a conservative or a progressive. I'm an electrician. I solve problems. When I show up to a job site, I don't ask the wiring what its politics are — I figure out what's wrong and I fix it. That's how I'll approach council."
— Riley Thompson
Community Support
What Penticton is saying.
Hear from the people who know me and believe in this vision for the city.
Endorsements are still coming in. Check back soon to see who's backing this campaign — or be the first to add your voice.
