O’KEEFE RANCH: THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THE END
On October 1, the O’Keefe Ranch & Interior Heritage Society learned from the City’s CAO that council won’t extend its lease past March 31, 2027. They didn’t hear it at a public meeting. Unless something changes, the society dissolves and the ranch closes.
I can’t find a public vote on this, and neither could local media. At this council’s last regular meeting on September 28, the ranch never came up.
WHY THIS ONE IS PERSONAL
O’Keefe Ranch holds some of my fondest memories from school trips. Buying candy at the general store. Peering into the little church. Watching the model railway wind through the scale Kettle Valley, over its trestles, with a real sense of wonder. I remember the music in the main house, the blacksmith at work and, above all, my dad telling me stories of Tierney O’Keefe.
That’s living, breathing history, and thousands of us have memories just like these. The ranch has a long history of teaching kids. Let’s give it a future of it too.
WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING
In 2023 the City did the right thing. It paid for a condition assessment, a Heritage Conservation Plan and a 10-year capital plan. The assessment found nearly $2.9 million in repairs needed over 10 years, with $500,000 of it needed right away. Then council cut the ranch’s capital funding from $50,000 to $10,000 a year. Paying for a plan and then ignoring it isn’t asset management. Heritage sites qualify for grants and partnerships that pipes and roads never will. Go after that money before defaulting to ‘cut it or sell it.’
KEEPING IT vs. LETTING IT GO
Keeping it isn’t cheap. In 2024, City staff costed the options through 2027. Business as usual’ came to about $1.73 million, and even the lowest-cost options ran close to $590,000. The society owes the City at least $225,000, by the City’s own 2024 report. The society’s books later claimed $272,500 was forgiven, and the City says it wasn’t. Meanwhile, the City paid the society more than $320,000 in 2024 alone.
Walking away isn’t cheap either. This isn’t ordinary City land. In 1977 the Devonian Foundation bought the ranch from the O’Keefe family for $600,000 and transferred it to Vernon in trust, to be run as an educational, historic public park. The City is the trustee. It can’t just sell it, rezone it or lock the gate. Changing a charitable trust means courts, the Attorney General, lawyers, time and money.
Right now the ranch runs on zero paid staff. The volunteers average 78 years old and logged about 8,500 hours last year. Lose them, and the City inherits every job they did for free.
WHAT WE ACTUALLY LOSE
It’s not just buildings. The society’s letter names who goes down with it: the Pioneer Power Club, the North Okanagan Model Railway Exhibit, Field of Screams, Hamming Farms, the Rustler’s Table Restaurant, and School District educational programs.
And the society now has to plan for disposing of everything it owns: antique stoves, carriages, stagecoaches, farm equipment and livestock. Once that’s auctioned off, the City is left holding empty buildings. You can’t buy that collection back.
IF THE LEASE WAS BREACHED, WHY WAIT?
In 2024, City staff told council the society had breached the lease by using City funding in ways it didn’t allow. Staff costed a ‘notice of breach’ option at about $588,000 through 2027. Council didn’t take it. Instead it voted publicly to keep the lease, cut funding to the $10,000 minimum and let the clock run.
The City’s own numbers suggest why. Taking the ranch back would have cost roughly $594,000, and an empty historic site still needs insurance, upkeep and someone watching it. With no plan for what came next, $10,000 a year to leave the society in place was the cheapest option on paper.
But that’s not a reason to wait. It’s a reason to make a plan. Council had two years, a paid-for assessment and a lease end date it could see coming. It still has no public plan. Either the breach was serious enough to act on in 2024, or it wasn’t. Letting a heritage site we hold in trust drift for two years, then closing the door quietly, is the worst of both options. Residents deserve to know why.
WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE: KIN RACE TRACK
In 1964 the Vernon Jockey Club turned the race track land over to the City. That’s the same club Cornelius O’Keefe once led. The equestrian society believed horse racing came with that land, and the City didn’t. The fight ran from 2010 to 2019. The court found no charitable trust, the City won, and in 2022 voters approved borrowing for the Active Living Centre on that site.
We got a great facility. But if you were thinking of leaving land to Vernon, would you after watching that? After watching this? Every family and foundation considering a gift is watching how we treat the last ones.
WHAT’S LIKELY TO HAPPEN
Nobody knows, and that’s the problem. The City hasn’t said whether it will run the ranch, find a new operator or sell. In 2025, the previous Okanagan Indian Band council voted to finalize a purchase, and the current chief says he was never briefed. The City won’t comment. Any future involving the Syilx people, on whose territory the ranch sits, deserves to happen in the open.
NOBODY ASKED YOU
Through all of this, three years of funding fights, assessments, a breached lease, sale talks and now a closure notice, I can’t find a single time the City asked residents what they want for O’Keefe Ranch. Even the society running the ranch says it’s been asking the City for its plans for years, with no answer. Council even has its own appointed liaison to the ranch society. It had a direct line the whole time.
It’s had every chance:
-In 2023, council paid for a three-phase plan for the ranch. The reports were posted for residents to read, but nobody asked residents what they wanted.
-From 2024 to 2025, the City ran three rounds of OCP surveys, and nearly 1,400 people answered the first one alone. It even asked whether residents want local heritage recognized and conserved. It never asked about the ranch.
-The City’s own engagement site invites residents to help shape Polson Park’s future. There’s no page for O’Keefe.
-Every year there are budget input sessions. I know, because I’m there. This year’s budget meetings are likely November 30 and December 1, the new council’s first budget. Plan to attend and have your say. Watch vernon.ca/budgetprocess to confirm the dates.
-In 2022, the City put the Active Living Centre to a vote on the election ballot. It knows how to ask the public a big question at election time. This October’s ballot carries nothing on the ranch.
So why not ask? Maybe because residents might say “keep it, fix it, find the money,” and that’s an answer council would have to act on. A decision about a heritage site held in trust for the public should start with the public, not end with a notice from the CAO.
WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED
-A vote in an open meeting, with the reasons on the record
-Public input before the decision, not a notice after it
-A real heritage strategy. Vernon has a heritage register and a few heritage goals in the OCP, but no funded plan for the heritage the City actually owns. Its own strategic plan still lists the Public Art Policy as ‘Not Started.’ This is in my platform to do.
-A real partnership with our neighbours. The ranch sits in Spallumcheen and serves the whole North Okanagan. Coldstream has chipped in about $20,000 a year, and Spallumcheen’s support is smaller and only came in recent years. Vernon taxpayers still carry most of it, which is the same lopsided deal we got on the Active Living Centre.
Ending a lease doesn’t require a referendum. But a decision this big, delivered two weeks before an election, belonged in front of the people.
THIS ISN’T SET IN STONE
The lease runs to March 31, 2027, and a new council takes office in November. That’s five months to negotiate a new lease, a new operating model or a regional partnership.
WHERE WE GO FROM HERE
1. Nearly 1,900 people have signed in just two days. Add your name and share it: https://www.change.org/save-okeefe-ranch (no need to donate)
2. Write to council now, not just after the election. Current councillors can still change course before March. Their emails are here: https://www.vernon.ca/government-services/mayor-council
3. Ask every candidate: Will you revisit this? Will you release the reasons? Will you commit to a heritage policy?
4. Vote. Advance voting is Oct 7 at the Schubert Centre and Oct 14 at City Hall. General voting is Saturday, Oct 17, 8am to 8pm. Find your voting place at vernon.ca/voterinfo. Vote Dawn Tucker, Your Financial Watchdog, A Voice You Can Count On for Vernon City Council.
If elected, my first priority will be getting O’Keefe Ranch back on the council table. I’ll push to reopen this decision and explore every option to keep the gates open past March, from new operating models to heritage grants and regional partners. I will fight for a heritage and arts policy, so gifts to this city are protected, not litigated. I will demand transparency and accountability on how this decision was made. And I will make sure residents are heard before the next one is made, not after.
Know what we have. Fund the plan. Ask the people.
PLEASE SHARE THIS POST. Most people heard about the closure but not about the trust, the breach or the missing public input. Help get the full story out.
Tell me in the comments below if you want to keep the Ranch or not and what your thoughts are, favorite memories, or what value you believe the ranch holds. I want to hear from you
Want to know where I stand on everything else, from taxes and water to housing and safety? Read my full platform at buzzdawn.ca.
And please stay engaged after October 17, whoever wins. The ranch’s future will be decided in the five months after the election, at council meetings most people never attend. Watch, show up, write to council. That’s how decisions like this get made in the open.
Give me a buzz: info@buzzdawn.ca | buzzdawn.ca
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Photo of O’Keefe Mansion taken from O’Keefe Website