Kelowna mayoral candidate Tom Dyas is claiming misuse of taxpayer money over promoted ads on the city’s Facebook page.
A release from Dyas’ campaign says that between February 2020 and May 2022 the City of Kelowna promoted 18 ads on Facebook with only three of them featuring Mayor Colin Basran.
Between June 2022 and July 2022, the city promoted seven ads with a total of five featuring the mayor.
“Meaning the mayor went from being featured in taxpayer-funded Facebook advertisements an average of once every nine months to once every week in the lead up to the municipal election campaign period,” the release said.
“I’m concerned the City of Kelowna has used taxpayer dollars to promote the mayor in the lead-up to municipal election,” said Dyas.
Capital News checked the city’s Facebook page and confirmed the number of sponsored ads featuring the mayor during the time period listed, however, there were no sponsored ads featuring Basran for the month of August.
“As Kelowna’s next mayor I will commit to banning all City of Kelowna advertising spending not related to public safety, community engagement, and consultation, or required advertising by upper levels of government,” added Dyas.
Capital News has reached out to city hall and is waiting for comment on the story.
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@GaryBarnes109
gary.barnes@kelownacapnews.com
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