Welcome to Your Kamloops!

Curbside recycling fee to be reduced thanks to Gas Tax Grant...

I think the curbside recycling monthly fee will be about $26 to $27 now, quite a significant reduction I think. The lowest fee I have seen proposed is about $35.

The community has received a 3.34 million dollar grant from the Federal Gas Tax.

Congratulations to the Mountain Pine Beetle Work Crew...

Its sooo totally great when many different good things come together. So how about this...

...the city partners with the federal government and Community Futures to help people on employment assistance gain new skills while offering a curbside pickup service for pine beetle trees at no additional cost to city homeowners.

I attended the grad ceremony for the pine beetle pickup work crew yesterday. Smiles all around...

Congrats I hope some of the work crew decide to start their own businesses.

Council Meeting Aug 28 2007 - Recap

I know that many people find these council meeting recaps useful, so I want to try to be diligent about writing them after every council meeting. I have not been able, as of yet, to keep the recaps current. And I don't feel good about that. So, lets see if I can not miss one for the rest of this term - another 15 months!

We started the meeting by approving the reduction of a rear yard setback (the amount of open space between a structure and the property line) from 6 metres to 4 metres to permit the construction of a new single family home at 815 Grant Road in Westsyde.

In the public inquiries section, Dr Christina Mader shared concerns about the operation of a care facility in an downtown area recently designated as residential. She is worried that the building is unlicensed and has significant neighborhood impact.

Your council approved development permits for a new Min of forestry building situated in the provincial government building complex at 455 Columbia Street, for a new office building for the old pizza hut restaurant location at 470 Columbia Street, for a new multi family mixed social, market housing development at 460,468,476 Battle Street, and finally for a new mini storage facility, 7530 Dallas Drive, at the Gateway Industrial Park.

The toughest decision of the meeting was whether to send the rezoning application for 2575 Thompson Drive in Dallas to a public hearing. The building in question has illegally been converted from a 4 plex into a 12 plex and the applicant is now applying to legitimize the buidling.  City staff recommended turning down the request to send the rezone to a public hearing. But, Council, by a 5 - 2 margin, decided that it would be good to hear from more of the public on this issue. More on this situation from my personal point of view.

We sided with the staff recommendation to conduct further review, at the cost of about $230 000, of options for the upgrading for the community wastewater treatment plant. This project has been estimated to cost upwards of 50 million dollars, and attempts are being made to see if that cost can be safely and successfully reduced.

The 2006/2007 transit performance review was presented. Kamloops ridership is still increasing  - 3.8% in the last year. Hopefully the new service enhancements on Sundays, holidays, and evenings will further increase transit use.

The new Kamloops ambassadors, Miss Kamloops Maymie Tegart and company, came as a delegation to Council. Also presenting today were Chandra Collins, Diane Brain, and Wally Brain with concerns about criminal activity at the downtown transit exchange as well as Sean Wandler Head Coach of the provincial champs the Kamloops Riverdogs Midget AAA baseball team

Prompted by a letter from Judy Taylor-Atkinson, we talked a little about public consultation for the Aberdeen neighborhood plans. Staff will be hosting public meetings in the near future.

Why City Staff Oppose the 12plex.

Thanks Skylark for the question in the comments thread below:

Why is the city thus far opposed to legitimizing the 12-unit-space even if Mr Pavlovic brings it up to code? Too high density for the area? Other?

From what I understand, city staff do feel that such densities out in that area of the Dallas neighborhood are not really appropriate. Normally, that amount of multi family units is situated closer to shopping, services, and more frequent bus routes.

The other reason might be Mr Pavlovic's blatant flaunting of the rules.