Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Information on Wildfire Safety for your Home and Neighbourhood...

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/33595045/

We're all over the provincial and national news websites today. Residents in Barnhartvale have been allowed back to their mobile homes, but the area remains on evacuation alert. Thought it might be a good time to point to some really important locally put together information.

Podcast: A Conversation with Dale Bass, Kamloops This Week

 

I sound pretty goofy in my intro to this podcast. Dale, by contrast, sounds ever her intelligent and engaging self.

An audio map:

01:21 - Creosote Tie Gasification Proposal

04:35 - Kudos to School District Public Engagement

07:27 - Journalist and/versus Community Member

09:00 - Kudos for Mayor Peter Milobar

09:14 - General Impressions at Start of 2010 Vancouver Olympics

Why isn't BC Lotteries Sharing Results Addressing Problem Gaming?

Sean Holman's story is troubling, especially the part of BCLC wheeling and dealing with public's right to know...

Interesting Recent Issues at Kamloops City Hall - Aug 20th 2009

Just got through writing these up:

Bylaw To Prevent Private Trees from Falling on Public Property
In recent years, City Hall has spent about 6 million dollars on pine beetle removal efforts on community owned land. Now, attention is being turned to another potential hazard - trees on private property that could fall on public property. City Arbourist Greg Houghton has identified over 200 such trees on private property and Council has now given city staff authority to require property owners to take down these trees. Once an order is given, there will be a 21 day window to comply. The average ballpark cost for removing a tree, depending on size and location, is about $2000 according to the city staff report. For more info, call Parks and Rec at (250) 828-3400.

City Upholds Availability of Public Payphones...
City Council discussed issue of safety, accessibility, and crime when talking about a proposed restriction on the payphone at 480 Tranquille Rd. The proposed restriction was to limit the calls from the phone to 911 only from 5pm to 9am. Council voted to keep the phone as is, with no restrictions. The general sentiment seemed to be that public payphone are a necessary service for law abiding citizens, that there already has been a large decrease in public payphones, and that people undertaking criminal activitiy would not stop the activity if the payphone was restricted.


Kamloops Vies for 2015 Canada Summer Games...6000 Volunteers Needed
Kamloops is competing with Kelowna and Prince George to host the 2015 Canada Summer Games. There quite a few steps in the bid process, and the final announcement is slated for August 2010. The games will host about 3400 athletes and coaches who will need support from 6000 community volunteers. If Kamloops is successful, the community is required to spend 3 million dollars on capital / facility improvements. There is an estimated 90 million dollar economic spinoff.

My Short History with the Kamloops Spirit Square....

I'm really glad the Kamloops Spirit Square (corner of MacKenzie and Yew) is finally open for the community.

This little community square project has seen quite a few twists and turns since City Hall first started working on it in early 2007. As a member of Council at the time of the planning,I was fortunate to have a pretty good seat in the proceedings.

The essential impetus behind building the square was the the BC Government was willing to match city funds dollar for dollar, up to $500 000.

In Early 2007, when a Kamloops Spirit Square started being discussed in the community, there was significant backlash to the concept. Since there was two streams to the provincial  funding applications, or so we thought, the decision of Council was to apply for funds to conduct community consultation and planning. Even then, Kamloops This Week editor Chris Foulds took me to task for supporting $25 000 for such an effort.    

For most of 2007, we heard nothing from the Province about our community consulation funding application. In October 2007, Joe Leong, Tina Lange, and I met with then BC Community Services Minister Ida Chong at the Union of BC Municipalities convention. The Minister and her staff seemed to have discontinued the community consultation money, and told us they were very anxious for us to get building. It was kind of surreal really.

Community concern over the expenditure never really re-surfaced to a great degree.

Ok. So then the big question became building at what location and with what theme. Mayor Terry Lake was warm to the idea of a ice hockey theme. Other Council members initially favoured one shore of the river over another.

The question of south shore or north shore was a biggie. I remember attending an "emergency meeting" of the North Shore planning public members called out of concern council was showing bias towards the south shore.

In fact, when the outside planning company contracted to do identify initial locations presented to council, their list of criteria did not score north shore locations high on the list. Council added the criteria of "revitalization" and the north shore locations scored quite a bit higher.

Once we had unanimously settled on MacKenzie and Yew, there was the issue of more detailed planning and building. There was some considerable back and forth with Victoria and the plans and a desire to wait a while for the economy to cool down so we could get more competitive bids for the construction.

Concerns raised by Mike on Tubing / Boat Conflicts...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_seraph/ / CC BY 2.0

Over on my personal blog, where I have posted some stuff on tubing in Kamloops, got the following comment from Mike. Conflicts and concerns arise every summer but, with this heat wave, I guess we should all be extra careful to be responsible and courteous to others:

I am a Kamloops resident and taxpayer and have recently noticed a growing problem with the Valleyview public boat launch. I own a jet-ski and go boating with my family and have never been more frustrated with the constant growth of floaters using the boat launch and boat launch parking as their starting point to get on the river. Parking that is supposed to be used for boaters is now used by the "floaters" and they congest the launch area and park all along the way to the river, whether they are just listening to music, blowing up rafts, or waiting for friends, they are blocking the way for boaters to get on the river. Not only that, but the garbage and liquor bottles/cans are being thrown all over the boat launch area and I (among others) have been finding glass all the way down the concrete launch. This is not only a hazard to people; these pieces of glass can damage trailers and trucks that are hauling boats, jet skis, kayaks etc. On more than one occasion, I have seen floaters at the bottom of the boat launch sitting in the water, leaving no room whatsoever for boaters to launch their crafts in the water; this is very frustrating and makes for a poor start to anyone's day. On Sunday when we went to launch, a crew of floaters decided to launch their tubes and then hold onto a gentleman's boat who was trying to load it with his son. The man actually had to get angry in order to get the people to let go of his boat as the engine and boat was on and the prop was in motion. As many boaters that I have talked to, this seems to be the worst year yet. Something needs to be done about the floaters taking up parking at the Valleyview boat launch, as well as them using the boat launch as a personal tube launching area. I have noticed that bylaw is ticketing some cars that are at the boat launch, but they can only do that so much during the day/weekend. I think that if there is going to be this many tubers on the water they should have a parking lot designated just for floaters and make a separate launch for them. This will alleviate both danger for the floater and the people who own and want to launch their boats in the river. I have become a very frustrated user of the Valleyview boat launch and I'm sure that I am not the only one. Hopefully this letter will gain attention to a fast growing problem, to the point where something can be done to come to a conclusion for both parties.

Tournament Capital Centre Update today...

Hot off the press, blogged from my iPhone during the council break, here are some very impressive financial results from the operations of the Tournanent Capital Centre from the first 6 months of 2008:

- 984 annual passes sold
- 745 average monthly passes sold
- 160 average monthly track passes

-$ 595 037 revenue
-$ 421 465 expenses

Net $173 572

Most city facilities require tax subsidies. Congratulations to all involved!

At long last, a Pesticide bylaw for Kamloops...

Democracy is not easy or especially quick. But, for making decisions that best reflect the will of the community, you can't beat slogging through a democratic process. After a two year formal process, Kamloops will now have pesticide bylaw in place by April 2009. This bylaw will not be as strong against pesticide use as some would have wanted. The very fact we will have a bylaw at all will perhaps displease others. These views have at times been reflected around the council table.

What the bylaw will reflect is what all of members of Council could agree to. That is that we all wanted to try to reduce indiscriminate or uneducated use of pesticides in our community.  What we have ultimately done is to put in place an pesticide reduction education campaign and a requirement that all people and companies using pesticides must, by April 2009, get certified in their use through a city hall recognized accreditation program.

In Sept 2008, council will decide on an accreditation scheme.

Kudos to the Mayor for Showing Up...

Last week, at the Save Public Waterfront sponsored meeting to discuss development of the current parking lot between the Interior Savings Centre and the river, Mayor Terry Lake gave his point of view and welcomed questions. This, to my mind, is huge.  People wanted to see him there and I heard some people say he clarified issues that were previously confusing to them. He stood in the line of a bit of rhetorical fire. People gave him a large round of applause as he left.

First Blush - Takeaways from the 2007 Smart Growth BC Conference

I am putting this post into a lot of different categories because Smart Growth can underpin so much in a community. It is not just the intersection of the economy and the environment. It also speaks to social issues, preventing crime, the arts, and so much more.

Today, I attended Smart Growth BC's annual conference. This was a gathering of hundreds. And the topic at hand was how to create happier, healthier, more environmentally friendly, and more profitable communities. It may be a little abstract at first, but Smart Growth makes more and more sense to me every time I hear about it. Of course, its not a perfect philosopy, but it is the best I have seen so far. It is a very holistic approach.

Here are some of the highlights from today:

John Knott Jr leads one of the most ambitious city revitalization projects in the US - the Noisette development in North Charleston, South Carolina. He spoke about building and development as an art form and a service to the human community - not just a way to make money. He talked about good development taking into consideration the history and context of a place - sometimes going back thousands of years. This made me think about how we can incorporate more first nation touchstones in Kamloops development. It made me think of ranches, and river travel.  John Knott talked about  how green development not necessarily being more expensive, but a simple product of more thorough planning in the beginning. He also talked of an almost moral imperative for developers to help solve social problems in society. He said developers are actually the best placed people to lead the effort. A quote:

"We come together now around what we fear or what we hate - we no longer come together around what we love"

Chris Corps talked about the value propostion in building green. In Kamloops, we have had some conflicting information cost / benefits. But, Chris Corps points to many studies that indicate the benefits - a green building, for example, is a healthier building and consequently inhabitants are healthier, workers are more productive, patients get better faster. Chris was asked whether this may be because any new building, green or not, produces an initial excitement for people inside. He said it may be too early to draw anything conclusive but preliminary data shows  green features do have a positive effect on wellbeing. Chris pointed to the Green Value report - very interesting reading.

Whistler is heating their new athletes village using waste water. SFU hosts a new community on Burnaby Mountain - Univercity - a walkable community with a variety of housing options, where the residents are offered a $100 discount on a monthly transit pass. Univercity favours local Burnaby businesses in its retail spaces.

Jonathan Westeinde, with Windmill Developments, spoke a bit about the potential of green development. He maintains that using current technologies and practices, we can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from buildings well below Kyoto Protocol targets within 15 years. He pegged political will as a crucial element - helping to fast track green developments, and providing regulations that can make them successful.

I will be getting all the proceedings from the conference on a CD soon.