JOE FRIES Penticton Herald
A former head of the Downtown Victoria Business Association is facing two criminal charges stemming from her time with a similar group in Penticton.
Kerrilynn Marie Milton left the Downtown Penticton Association in July 2016 to become executive director of the Downtown Victoria Business Association, but left that job in November 2017. Neither she nor the DVBA explained why.
Milton was charged on June 11 with fraud over $5,000 and falsifying documents, the RCMP said. She was arrested and released on conditions pending her next court appearance on July 15 in provincial court in Penticton.
Milton couldn’t be reached for comment Friday.
The RCMP statement didn’t indicate where Milton was arrested and police didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.
Both offences are alleged to have occurred in 2014, when Milton was executive director of the Downtown Penticton Association.
Ten months after Milton left the Downtown Penticton Association, her successor, Lynn Allin, announced the group had discovered financial irregularities and ordered a forensic audit, the results of which had already been turned over to the RCMP.
Allin didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday. When news of the police investigation emerged in May 2017, she would reveal only that the irregularities stopped as of July 2016 — the same month Milton left.
In May 2017, Milton told the Penticton Herald she was surprised at any suggestion of financial irregularities because Downtown Penticton Association bookkeeping and auditing were handled by outside firms, and cheques signed by board members.
“I didn’t even have signing authority on purpose, because of keeping it an arm’s-length situation, so I don’t even know how that would be possible,” Milton said at the time.
What the RCMP statement described as a “thorough” investigation of the Downtown Penticton Association began in September 2016 and wrapped up with charges being recommended to the Crown in June 2018.
Supt. Ted De Jager, Penticton RCMP commander at that time, said the charge approval process would “take some time since it is a big file.”
Prior to her five years at the Downtown Penticton Association, Milton, a native of Cranbrook, managed the Penmar Theatre. She left that job after Landmark Cinemas built a new facility.
Milton later helped lead an unsuccessful drive to turn the abandoned Penmar Theatre into a community arts space, but that initiative failed in 2016 after going through $63,000 from the City of Penticton.
Milton, whose volunteer efforts also included service as a board member of the Summerland Montessori School, was recognized for business leadership in 2013 by the Penticton and Wine Country Chamber of Commerce as a recipient of the Top 40 Under 40 award.
