Welcome to Your Kamloops!

What Size Garbage Container Should You Lease...

This next couple of weeks, all houses in Kamloops will receive a flyer and an order form for containers that can be leased for the new garbage utility. The idea of containers, to me, makes sense because the size of container (choose from 4) determines how much you get charged for garbage collection. The more garbage you create, the more you pay.

We will get one free change of container, if the size you originally pick does not work out. A more detailed info sheet is here. In the spirit of summary, however, here is what I think is  the meat of the matter - in pictures. Again, please do not hesitate to contact me anytime with questions.

School Trustees Want More Police in Schools

One of the clear messages School Trustees wanted to convey to City Hall was that their dedicated RCMP officer in schools program is working. And they would like our help to get more RCMP officers in schools. I think Council and Administration, on the whole, is reluctant to provide dollars. I mentioned that we should think about putting the project on the supplementary budget items list (items that are not core, but are nice to do). But my suggestion did not seem to resonate with other City officials. The budget pressures for the next year do seem huge at this point, given reports of increasing inflation and given greater demand on Kamloops' roads, pipes, and parks.

What we did agree on is a joint lobbying effort to our MPs and MLAs to get funding from the provincial and federal governments.

More Time to Think May Be Impossible...

I am going to have to become very good at being a quick study and a quick analyst. Tomorrow, Council is holding a "workshop" type meeting where we will be discussing various issues and policies in more depth. We already received reading on the workshop topics last week. Here is a .pdf document (link will last until Feb 3rd ) with that reading package (you will need Adobe reader to open it). That gave me time to read, reread, and digest that information.

Then, a city truck pulled up at my residence today, driven by a friendly man named Tony. Tony hopped out of the truck and handed me another package of reading for tomorrow. His great attitude did make up for the fact I had not really scheduled reading time today. I did make time and loved doing it. But, again, I am going to have to sharpen my reading and analytical skills.

Thoughts on Council meeting with RCMP..

About 10 days ago,  Council met with RCMP representatives and consultants to give input to the Kamloops detachment's strategic plan. I want to thank everyone who shared through their thoughts - through this site and through email / telephone. 

A couple of thoughts:

• I am very impressed that the local RCMP are being so proactive in getting public input into their strategic plan. I know, for example,  the relationship between Council and RCMP senior officers has been rocky in the recent past. But, we all left feeling very good about a relationship that was already getting better.
  
• The RCMP have been hearing, and what we told them was no different, that the 3 most important issues are drugs, youth, and communication with the public.
  
• I did not relay enough of the comments I received from all of you in the meeting. But, I will do so in the following weeks. I sit on the City Race Relations Committee with Supt Jim Begley, Kamloops RCMP chief.
  
• I encouraged RCMP efforts to become more public friendly and to work with social agencies, community associations, and business groups so that problems can be worked on holistically.

Council Meeting Jan 24th 2006 - recap

We approved a variance allowing a North shore resident the ability to build a larger workshop than regulations normally allow. We approved the extension of closing time at the Central Station Pub. The very eloquent Lt Col Jykkanen of the Rocky Mountain Rangers gave us a presentation on the military training operation Cougar Salvo - to be held in Kamloops 11 - 18 March. Then, Gay Pooler and Grayden Flanagan from the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association (KCBIA) presented the KCBIA's 2005 report and 2006 budget.

We approved development permits for commercial buildings at 8175 Dallas Drive and 447 Columbia Street. We deferred a bylaw amendment to allow the construction of fabric structures in commercial areas so that City Staff could come up with more specific design guidelines for these structures. We took part in a land exchange regarding a piece of Kenna Cartwright park and the new residential development on the park border. BC Transit received our endorsement of their proposal to exchange some of Kamloops bus fleet with new Nova LFS buses.

Byron McCorkell, City Director of Parks and Recreation, presented two initiatives - one to sell trees being thinned out for fire safety reasons in the Dallas/Barnhartvale area and the other to clean up large pile of garbage left by squatters on the banks of the Thompson River. These also received Council endorsement.

More Stuff Soon...

Hello Everyone - I have got a lot of posts to get up here in the next couple of days, hopefully. We had a long and very interesting Council Tuesday yesterday. Met with the School Board, had an eventful Council meeting, and then held public hearings in the evening. I have been coming up against some challenging issues as well. So, it should make for some interesting writing. I am simply exhausted this evening, so off to bed I go very soon.

Council Meeting Jan 17th 2006 - recap

We voted to send a letter of intent to the neighbors of the Lake City Casino on Victoria Street to advise them about the Casino's application to serve liquor and to welcome their support or non support of the application. We appointed Peter Milobar, Jim Harker, and me to sit on the city commitee reviewing development cost charges. We approved the implementation of a petition in Rose Hill to solicit resident support / non support the construction of a sanitary sewer system.

We deferred decision on whether to implement the 'gold seal' certification requirement for superintentents on major city construction programs - so we could take three weeks to solicit more feedback from construction companies bidding on city contracts. Thanks to Debra Hicks from the Southern Interior Construction Assoc for her presentation.  We then heard a presentation from Gay Pooler from the Kamloops Central BIA on the summertime central ambassador program. We deferred her request for increased and more stable ambassador program funding to upcoming budget discussions.

Prompted by an accident last night in Westsyde, Mayor Terry expressed great concern about the visibility of some crosswalks in the city. Pat Wallace and I reinforced this concern. I personally thanked the helpful lady who called me and asked me to speak slower at Council meetings and encouraged one and all to vote in the upcoming Federal election on Jan 23rd.

Council Visit to the BC Wildlife Park...

The citizens of Kamloops are a major funding partner in the BC Wildlife Park (formerly the Kamloops Wildlife Park). We give about $200 000 a year in grants and we have also committed to match funds raised by the Wildlife Park to a limit of $3 000 000 over the next years.

The BC Wildlife Park has a vision to become the premier zoo in BC and to attract more visitors from the 5 million cars that pass it yearly. If this happens, this would be a great economic plus for Kamloops.

I know a lot of numbers.

This morning, the board of the Wildlife Park invited your Council for a tour, some presentations and some lunch. The Discovery Centre they are in the process of building holds much promise as a premier attraction that will teach young and old about the natural habitats of our beautiful province. Other improvements include the construction of a 600 person outdoor ampitheatre and a new building for the park's falconery program.

It was great to see the Wildlife Park try to realize some very ambitious goals. I hope the board continues to increase the self sufficiency of their operation - through creative marketing and sound financial management. The park seems well on its way to this goal.

Council Meeting, Jan 10th 2006 - a Recap

I am going to try and write a short paragraph or two about each City of Kamloops Council Meeting in 2006. Hopefully this will give readers a quick update with comprehensive highlights on we have talked about, heard about and decided.

Jan 10th 2006, here we go:

We proclaimed Alzheimer's Awareness month in Kamloops. The project managers of the Kamloops homeless count told us that they were able to count 168 homeless citizens in their November 16th 2005 count. We decided not to grant Kathy Roberts her pilot home based business status and, by a split vote, decided not to review the home based business bylaw at this time. Unanimously, we decided to reinstate the SHOP program for sex trade workers. The program was modified to remove a drop-in focus and to provide a stronger community education effort.

We voted to support the extension of hours at Central Station pub (from 12pm most nights to 1am). We voted to approve an agreement with CN to provide fire services to their yellowhead highway rail yard. We referred a request from the United Way regarding the provision of free bus tickets to very low income people to the City social planning council for comment. We gave our support to the 2006 local Communities in Bloom effort. By a split vote, we decided that members of Council should not be allowed to participate in the voluntary water meter pilot program.

Creating a 3 year plan for Kamloops City Council.

It cost about $5000, involved 17 people, and it was totally worth it. Your City Council, Senior City staff, and a facilitator by the name of Hugh Culver - we all met this weekend at TRU to develop a new 3 year strategic plan for Kamloops.

Hugh had us:
1) Rate completion of goals in the past strategic plan.
2) Add ideas to the plan / Reemphasize old goals
3) Decide whether we wanted to change the major headings in the plan.
4) Vote on our new ideas and the goals people wanted to keep (council only)
5) Write up our draft new plan into a document projected on the big screen.

It worked really well, in my view. We decided to keep the major headings in the past plan. Environmental issues came closest to becoming a new heading but we decided that, at this point, the creation of a comprehensive environmental strategy would be under the "livability" heading.

As the strategic plan is still in draft format, I don't want to talk about all the different goals. Notable in my head as newer goals are the desire to improve city efforts to help facilitate the growth of TRU, a commitment to help local citizens take advantage of the many opportunities that will come with the 2010 Vancouver / Whistler Olympics, and the environmental strategy I spoke of in the last paragraph.

Just also to say that this plan is flexible. While I would not like to see this happen a lot, we can amend the plan anytime in the 3 year term.