Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Welcome Pete Backus!

Pete Backus announced his candidacy for Mayor this week. I have just recently met Pete through his support of the North Shore Community Safety Patrol. Welcome Pete!

Kamloops This Weeks writes:

Claiming to be "a working man's candidate," Pete Backus announced his candidacy for mayor Wednesday outside City Hall and referred to a "couple of surprises" to come.

Backus, surrounded by a small group of supporters, told reporters that he had resigned from his position as crime prevention officer that morning and hopes he will have the opportunity to bring some "excitement" to city hall.

I will update my list of candidates appropriately.

The Silly Season Begins?

This evening, I went to the very well done TRU foundation dinner at OLPH hall. Uncle Baswant Gowd did a great deal of work to put it together, ably assisted by a team of able organizers.

At the dinner, all the Mayorality candidates, John O Fee, and myself. Now, speaking for myself, I always hate it when politicians (I prefer the word representatives) show up at every event known to humanity before an election and then don't show up after.

And I don't deny the all of the candidates present today would be there in a non election year as well. I guess its the optics that bothers me - people might be thinking the candididates are thinking: "when I need you, I am there but when you need me, well I don't know"

But, now as candidate,  I see the importance of getting out to meet people, to talk with them, and most importantly to listen. And it necessitates showing up at events like these.  And I commit to making sure I am just as much out there after the election.

Thank you Chris Koehn and Nancy Singh

Time for some thank yous! There will be a lot of thank yous given on this web site. These are more of the Internet variety.

• Thank you to Chris Koehn for his very kind mention of this web site on his blog. Chris is a local videographer and journalism student.
• Thank you Nancy Singh, my good friend from McGill University back in the late 80s / early 90s, who contacted me and left such an encouraging voicemail. She found this web site!  Nancy's living in Victoria now. And her husband, Erik Kaye, is running for Victoria City Council. I wish you Erik the very best of luck!

A Position on Pesticides....

Good people in the City have been organizing to lobby for a city bylaw that restricts the use of pesticides in Kamloops. I am very interested to hear what you think about this issue, Here is what they say on the Pesticide Free Kamloops web site:

Our objective is a City of Kamloops Bylaw which restricts the use of chemical pesticides on public and private lands.

Such a by-law will:

    * restrict use of chemical pesticides on public and private lands.
    * not restrict use for public health or public safety issues, water purifying, swimming pool requirements or agricultural purposes.
    * not restrict inside use.
    * list permitted, non-chemical pesticides.
    * establish a process for chemical applications, including registration, notification and signage requirements.
    * be phased in over a few years, starting with public lands and followed by private lands.
    * include a public education and awareness program.

I am leaning to supporting such a bylaw, but have not done all my research yet.

Audio Diary - September 25th 2005

Download cc_audiodiary_092505.MP3

2 minutes 51 seconds

• Going to the Blazers Game
• Want to keep close contact with all other candidates
• Organizing campaign files…trying to get into digital format
• Researching pesticide issue
• The week ahead - meetings, raising money

Initially Contentious Community Meeting on Fire Hazards in Peterson Creek Park...

Forgive the long winded title to this post. It is getting late but I want to put down some of my thoughts on a very interesting meeting I was invited to this evening. I received an email from a resident of Sedgewick Drive - properties there back on to Peterson Creek Park. She started her email thusly:

You may not be aware that a large number of voters in the Kamloops South
area - those adjacent to interface area in Aberdeen, Kenna Cartwright
and Peterson Creek - are extremely upset with the City of Kamloops Urban
Fire Interface program.  The current plan does not make sense from a
fire point of view and the way it is being implemented is appalling!  If
we don't stop cutting green trees in our parks, by the time the pine
beetle if done, we won't have ANY trees to worry about.

This email was sent to all candidates for City Council along with an invitation to attend a public meeting this evening.

"Urban interface" basically means issues concerning natural land that is very close to developed neighborhoods or commercial areas.

The meeting started with a presentation on how the City intends to mitigate the fire hazards of a forest fire in Peterson Creek park. Peterson Creek has been rated an extreme fire risk and the City has been cutting trees there to reduce the risk of uncontrollable fire spread. Therein lies the rub for a group of residents whose properties back on to Peterson Creek. They don't want to live in what one called a "clearcut". With the mountain pine beetle already devastating our forests, some feel that getting rid of trees that could potentially mean there would be no trees left.

The meeting got testy at times but I think it ended with a lot of good ideas that city staff committed to consider:

1. The distance City staff were proposing to space trees caused much concern. Instead of 8 metres between trees or 10+metres between clumps of trees as proposed, staff agreed to hear other expert opinions on using shorter distances.
2. People wanted the City to solicit as many ideas as possible on how to deal with the problem - short of cutting down trees. Staff agreed to look into this.
3. Staff were proposing to preserving ponderosa pine over douglas fir trees and it was suggested to look into reversing the order. Staff also agreed to look into this.

One reason people were a little angry is that they did not feel they had been adequately consulted. Staff ackowledged this oversight and this meeting went a long way to making people feel better.

Of course, the process has to continue to be open, transparent, and consultative from this point on or all the goodwill gained tonight will be lost.

Raising Money for My Campaign

It is not the easiest thing to do to ask people for a donation. What I try to do is to have a discussion about City issues and my candidacy right up front. If there seems to be a good mesh (and often with people who know me, there is already a good mesh), I preface my request for a donation with the statement "I would totally understand if you were not able to" and / or "no pressure at all" and then simply ask.

Lots of people have said they couldn't help. And thats totally okay. But I keep asking people. And, out of a target of $5000, I have raised about $3500 so far.

I feel pretty good about that. And I hope to have the rest of the money raised by the end of next week.

CFBX Community Radio Volunteer Party

One of the many joys of my life is the weekly hour I host on CFBX - Kamloops University and Community Radio station - the X. I host Kamloops Internet Radio, every Friday at Noon, and have done so for most of the last three years.

This evening, the X held one of their occasional volunteer parties. Many young and young at heart people in attendance. The most inspirational part of the evening was when people shared their names and the names of the shows they host. So so much creativity and energy. And such variety.

We need these type of people to get more plugged in to, to take more ownership of, government at all levels. These people balance out the increased conservatism of age. We need them in the mix.

I talked over some ad concepts with some of the people in attendance. I want my advertising for this campaign to really grab people's attention. Watched carefully to see how the group reacted to different ideas. More on this later...

Finally - a North Shore Community Plan

Here's Carla Stewart, with the City Planning Department, talking about the issues the Advisory Committee for the first ever North Shore Community Plan should cover. These include:

• Special development areas (meaning focal points like the airport and the Tranquille Rd business district)
• neighborhood characters
• heritage and cultural resources
• environmental sensitive areas (eg floodplain)
• transportation pressures
• technical issues ( infrastructure issues)

There will be much opportunity for the people of the North Shore to express their thoughts and hopes. This is just the start of what Carla said would probably be a 2 year process. If you want to get a jumpstart, though, you can call City Hall at 828 3311 and ask for Carla Stewart.

John Popoff on the City Centre Plan...

At the Kamloops Rotary Club meeting today, I had the opportunity to hear John Popoff, Community Planning Supervisor at the City, present on the development of a new City Centre plan for Kamloops. As John so rightly said, downtown is our flagship area and we need to continue to work to make it an attractive place which reflects the aspirations of the whole community.

John outlined the City's proposed focus on beautifying Lansdowne and Seymour Streets. I think this is a great focus and I am also supportive of making both these streets "enhanced one way". Right now, as one way streets without much landscaping on the sides, Seymour and Lansdowne can sometimes be speedways. "Enhanced one way", which is a less expensive option than converting to two way, would beautify the area and perhaps slow down traffic a little. John mentioned planting trees on one way streets creates a tunnel effect that has the effect on slowing cars down. "Enhanced one way" could eventually lead to two way in the future.

Other ideas John mentioned were creating more housing across from Riverside Park (where the Max nightclub currently sits), an extension and "open airing" of Peterson Creek trails right through to Riverside or Pioneer Park, and a downtown shuttle service.

There was a lot more John had in his presentation. I am giving you what struck me. Probably, the best way to get the whole experience is to contact John directly ( John very much invited feedback from people which I very much appreciated) or to come to a public meeting the City is holding on the City Centre Plan, Monday, October 3rd, at the Rivers Room at Interior Saving Centre (formerly Sportmart Place, formerly Riverside Coliseum).