‘We want to make East Kamloops a place that’s always happening’, Valleyview business owners push for BIA

KAMLOOPS – Businesses in Valleyview and Dallas are one step closer to having their own business improvement association.

At Tuesday morning’s (May 14) city council meeting, councillors voted in favour of initiating the first steps in the process to establish an East Kamloops BIA.

“We have no funding, so basically it’s all volunteers,” said director Randy Ruygrok from the East Kamloops BIA. “We have no employees, no staff, but we have a need and we’re here to service that need.”

The next step toward an East Kamloops BIA will be sending a letter out to all the businesses in the area. Those businesses will then vote on whether they want to be a part of the BIA.

If all goes as planned, the East Kamloops BIA could hit the ground running in 2025 — a move Manmeet Sra, owner of Papa Murphy’s Pizza in Valleyview, is hoping for.

“We are in big favour. We want to support that,” Sra told CFJC News. “We want to make East Kamloops a place that’s always happening — just like, as I mentioned earlier, the North Shore BIA and the downtown BIA. They’re doing such great things.”