Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Weyerhaeuser and Heavy Industry Tax Issue - A Fair Deal

Been more than a month since my last post on the Weyerhaeuser tax rate issue. Actually, this is discussion the city had with all members of the heavy industry tax class in Kamloops. There are 4 companies in this class.

Mayor Terry Lake, Councillor Peter Milobar, Chief Admin Officer Randy Diehl, and Director of Finance Sally Edwards formed a committee that researched this issue thoroughly, met with the involved businesses. and briefed the rest of Council at significant milestones in the process.

They did a great job.

In the end, they steered away from giving special tax exemptions to any one company, satisfied heavy industry's (and specifically Weyerhaeuser's) request for greater tax fairness. and made a committment to residential taxpayers not to unduly shift the tax burden over to them. The commitment to heavy industry is that the city will limit any tax increases to them to 1% annually for the next two years.

Since Weyerhaeuser started the discussion on this issue, it is important to note that they are on board with the solution.  They might still have difficulty being viable in Kamloops but council has signaled our support fo their efforts to be profitable in the community.

Council Meeting April 25th - Recap

We approved development various permits for a homeowner on the North Shore, a developer in Bachelor Heights, and for two different second kitchens.

We honoured people who have died on the job by proclaiming a Day and a Week of Mourning. Jennifer Gore of the Kamloops SPCA brought in cute kittens and a cute puppy to let us know of a new SPCA fundraising "city challenge". And the Mayor was given the honour to place gold medals around the necks of St Anns Academy students who won first place at the provincial Destination Imagination competition.

We had an interesting and important discussion about criteria for determining when we should fly a flag or lower a flag at city hall.

By a split vote, we altered the development permit for the Renaissance Retirement home on the North Shore - after the developer did not build all the required features in the old permit. We received a report outling the activity of the city development and engineering services department.

We approved the property tax increase for 2006. City staff informed us that Sean Horne and the Kamloops Progressive Electors will not be able to stand in the next municipal election in 2008 because of a failure to file their campaign disclosure statement.  We approved a new format for the Council meeting agenda.

Monique Smith, a TRU student, presented on her plan to set up recycling at student housing complexes at the university. And Paddy Harrington, from the Kamloops Foundation, presented the city with a dividend cheque from the city endowment fund. This cheque, we gave right back, as we reinvest it back into the endowment.

At the evening public hearing, we heard from many people supporting and opposing the proposed Tranquille on the Lake development. In the end, we approved the rezoning in support of the the proposal. A letter of support to the Agricultural Land Commission was also approved.

Rolled into the evening meeting was the approval of new guidelines for multi family dwellings in the city.

Sitting on the North Shore Plan Committee...

I really cannot believe my luck. I have been appointed to the new advisory committee for the first ever community plan for the North Shore.  Attended my first meeting last week - a very productive 3 and a half hours. The reason for the length: we spent a lot of time pouring over large maps of the North Shore "pouring our brains out" with markers - noting opportunities, challenges, and various features of the North Shore. We talked about the transportation links, the gathering places, the good places, and the bad places (good and bad obviously vary, especially with regards to day time and night time perceptions).

At the end of the meeting, we started what will be quite an involved process of planning land use. We sketched out different and distinct areas on the North Shore. This is just a starting point, I must emphasize. We will be doing a lot of consultation. In fact, already the City planners have solicited feedback quite aggressively and have hundreds of responses. And its still early in the process.

What we talked about at Social Planning last night...

I wrote a short column for the Senior Connector. It was about many of the issues the Social Planning Council talked about last evening. Here it is:

The City Social Planning Council deals with very important, sometimes very difficult, issues. And they do so with great care and energy. At the last monthly meeting they discussed the following issues:

Asset Building: Asset building offers a framework for teaching youth critical life skills. This framework consists of 40 different "assets" kids could possess. The community asset building program has, for example, worked with elementary school children to support them as they plan a garden along the Rivers Trail. The children are given leadership roles, with the adults as supporting partners.

The SHOP program: The SHOP program helps sex trade workers live more healthy, productive lives. The program hopes to provide a safe environment for people who are amongst the most abused and marginalized in our community. The people who run SHOP tell us that almost no one in the sex trade in Kamloops chooses to be there. They try to help people who want to get out of the sex trade.

The Kamloops Integration Project: Started by three provincial ministries, this project looked at those who are "falling through the cracks" and successfully pooled funding and resources to help these people find housing and support. Many local social agencies established and enhanced cooperative relationships.

Seniors Advocacy: City Council asked for a recommendation on a request for support from a provincial seniors advocacy group led by Joyce Jones. This group wants to set up seniors advocacy centres in cities across the province. I would be interested in any of your thoughts on whether this would be a good idea or not?

The Social Planning Council talks about a whole range of social issues in the community.

They are incredible group of caring people who are, at this moment, looking for new members. Interested? Call Ron McColl at 828 3311. Or call me at 377 1797.

Help at out the McDonald Park Easter Party

I have such plans for this site. Its been difficult to blog here as much as I think I need to. So, I am going to kick it up a notch after the Easter weekend,at least for the forseeable future.

While you are all waiting for more posts :), here is a volunteer opportunity from Cindy Nelson from the McDonald Park neighborhood association:

Hello all; you all know by now that I am a part of my neighbourhood Society that is trying to make our North Shore Neighbourhood a quality place to live.

 

The Friends of McDonald Park are in DESPERATE need of some help, We are hosting our 1st annual Easter Event in McDonald Park.

 

We have exhausted all avenues for Volunteers.

 

We are Planning a fun filled day for the Children of our Community.This will include, bouncies, an Easter Egg hunt, face painting, a Clown Show, crafts and a hot dag sale.

 

The Event takes place in McDonald Park (north shore) Saturday April 15th from 10 am-1:30

 

PLEASE if if there is any way you can come spare a couple of hours to make the children of our community have a great easter day, we would be gratefull.

 

Tell all youre friends, bring youre family and fw this e-mail...WE NEED HELP!!!

 

MY NUMBERS ARE

554-0841 OR MY CELL AT 371-7472

call me, e-mail me, come have a fun filled afternoon

Continued Observations from Globe 2006

I'm back from Globe 2006 conference. Frankly, looking back at the previous post, I wish I had taken the time to post my summaries at the end of each day, instead of just the first. I feel a little overwhelmed by the huge amount of information I heard and read.

What I would like to do here is to give a broad overview of what I think, at this point,  might be the broad takeaways for a possible environmental strategy for Kamloops. But first, here is the complete seminars I attended:

• Corporate Sustainablility Plenary: Leading the Sustainability Economy
• Balancing Regulation and Profit: Developers and the Planning Department
• Innovative Financing for Sustainable Infrastructure
• Green Procurement Policy: Settting Parameters for Change
• Energy and Environment Plenary: Transitioning to a Low Carbon Economy
• Municipal Governance in  Action: Making Daily Decisions with Sustainable Goals
• Partnering for Sustainable Economic Development: Lessons Learned
• From Green Buildings to Equitable Neighborhoods: The Space Between Buildings
• Sustainability Cities Breakfast
• Urban Plenary: Bridging to the World Urban Forum and the 2010 Olympics
• Creative Financing for Brownfield Development

Here's my broad level overview of possible takeaways:

The global business leaders who spoke at Globe 2006 - leaders of British Petroleum, Dow Chemicals, Swiss Re Insurance, and Honda - all echoed the point that climate change, global warming, and resource depletion are massive problems. And they all claim to be proactively working to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.

Cities, across the world, are also taking leadership roles in being part of the solution. As well as being environmentally sensitive, there is very likely strong money saving and, in fact, revenue generation opportunities for cities in being more green. Vancouver, for example, is creating a "sustainability precinct" that will be heated by sewer heat and that is actually forecasted to generate surplus energy that the city will be able to sell. Chicago has saved hundreds of thousands dollars by installing solar panels on city facilities. And Richmond has saved thousands by tunings its ice refrigeration systems in it's arenas.

The University of British Columbia is leading provincial efforts to show that green building techniques (also known in the "biz" as LEED certified) can be employed for the same or even for less cost as conventional building techniques. In the US, cities like Chicago have offered expedited building permit processing to green building projects.

Various cities are also working to decrease the environmental footprint of their own operations. Goals like zero waste and strong anti idling policies were mentioned. Vancouver has embarked on a extensive public education campaign to get Vancouverites to live more in concert with the planet - onedayvancouver.ca.

If you don't like the term "green", you can use a more an all encompassing "sustainability". If you don't like the term "sustainability", you might even use the even more all encompassing term "common sense". The Resort Municipality of Whistler has incorporated common sense principles into its whole philosophy - an example of which is the creation of affordable housing for those working in the resort, thus creating vibrant year round neighborhoods and less green house gas emissions from car travel.

I consider my thoughts very much a work in progress. If you have any thoughts, please email me or leave a comment below.