Welcome to Your Kamloops!

How Walkable is your (potential) Neighborhood...

Through David Drucker's Loud Murmurs Blog in Vancouver, I found a great little site called Walk Score that allows folks to get some idea of how walkable different neighborhood are. It's only one tool I would rely on, but still I think it provides generally valuable information.

A tour of the Kamloops Brewery...

It's really nice to have a quality craft brewery with aggressive, quality management in our community.  I am very impressed overall with Bruce Dean and his team at Kamloops Brewery.

The Brewery today launched a beer they hope to market to the local community. It seems to me that they are looking initially to target the younger male demographic with their "Hot KB Girl" marketing campaign, designed by two women no less.

Not my cup of tea, kind of took me by surprise when I arrived at the event, but I am interested to see community reaction. I sampled the new KB genuine draft and quite liked it. In full disclosure, they gave guests a six pack of the new beer when we were leaving.

Also went on a tour of the brewery, a walkthrough of the process of assembling the ingredients, brewing, and packaging of quality bear.  Found that more interesting...here are some photos:

   

          

Thoughts on regulating boating on the Thompson River?

I would be most interested in hearing from people who use the river for boating, tubing, water skiing or other water based activities. Your council is considering restricting some water based activities - specifically banning boat tows between the vicinity of Hong Kong beach in Valleyview and the CN rail bridge and posting signs notifyng people of that ban..

Is there enough of a safety issue on the river to justify the increased costs and potential costs to the community if we regulate uses of the river?

Here is a bit of background on how this issue came to council's attention. About a year ago, a Transport Canada representative came to present to council and indicated that he had been approached by users of the river who were becoming increasingly concerned with safety.  I don't know how many people had approached him. He asked council to consider regulating some of the uses of the river. Right now, city hall does not take responsibility to regulate any river activities. If we did, we would assume liability if someone got hurt on the river and thought we did not exercise responsibility in our regulation -eg, if we did not ensure signs notifying people of the rules were maintained properly, etc. Right now, the city assumes no liability.

A committee of council, staff, RCMP, the Kamloops Indian Band and other agencies are working on a proposal that would recommend the posting of signs, and the ban on boat tows.

What do you think? Is there a safety issue on the river? Should we take on the potential liability risk of regulation?

Can't sleep, waxing not so eloquently about the North Shore Plan!

This video captures some of my thoughts:

Did Councillor O'Fee make it up the hill? I know I didn't...

Even still, Bike to Work Week is awesome. Easy solutions for hills: take the bus up, or get a small inconspicuous  electric assist on your bike. Harder but worthwhile: keep at er, it will get easier.

I was so out of breath, I promoted or demoted Randy Diehl and Len Hrycan (senior city staff)!

Kamloops City Hall Can Meet the Challenge of the BC Carbon Tax...

That is the feeling I came way with today after Public Works Director, David Duckworth, gave a presentation on preliminary research he has done on the carbon tax and the City of Kamloops.

• A good starting estimate on how much city operation emit is 7700 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. This is broken down into 50% buildings, 32% fleet (vehicles), 15% utilities, and 3% street lights.
• If we do nothing about reducing our emissions, the carbon tax impact will be $41,500 in 2008, rising to $244,000 in 2012.
• But we are not going to do nothing. Considerations include building retrofits (eg, solar panels on the Canada Games pool), heating and power systems in city work vehicles that will reduce idling, requiring  that virtually all civic buildings are built to a high energy efficiency (LEED) standard, and piloting new more energy efficient streetlighting technology.

Some other interesting tidbits: because the city is part of a large buying group, price for gas for city vehicles is about 20 cents less than the pump; city has had a program that has replaced 400 watt streetlights with 250 watt, and 250 watt with 100 watt. Still as bright, but much more energy efficient.

The rising pass of oil helps the business case for the green technologies. And, so will the carbon tax.

A start at a new affordable housing strategy... not just secondary suites

Today at the council workshop session, we were taken through various tools that might allow the creation of more affordable housing units in the city. This process is just starting but here are some preliminary points and thoughts:

1. The creation of affordable housing in Kamloops goes beyond simply looking at secondary suites. In fact, a more permissive secondary suite policy may not be the even part of the strategy.
2. City staff feel the most promising strategy, at this early point, may be looking at offering builders the ability to add more units if they include some more affordable units in their projects.
3. We are looking at mainly the market sector, not non profit housing. This means we need to figure a way to work closely with the building community to achieve this community goal.
4. If we pursue a secondary suite strategy, good first step might be passing along appropriate and relevant information to potential suite owners on how to create a legal suite.
5. Two prong strategy: look at both helping create more rentals, and more affordable ownership opportunities.

Thank You Mairi....

This summer, a very bright young person will be doing a bit of job shadowing with (of?) me. I first met Mairi Lester this past December when she contacted me and expressed an interest in civic issues and public engagement strategies. Mairi took the SFU semester in dialogue, and has recently graduated with a BA, specializing in geography and political science.

It's totally impressive when a young person expresses such an interest and has the chops to seek out ways of learning and growing. This is a very good, and sadly still rare, sign.

We quickly hatched a bit of a plan. I would help Mairi understand better what I do as a member of city council, and Mairi would help me understand better how to better engage people in our community. It's working quite well so far. Thanks Mairi for the fine work you have done and for the good advice you have shared so far. It's been a pleasure and I look forward to a great, productive partnership!

Mairi was a good sport today and let me video a short personal introduction.

Why I am Excited about North Kamloops...

The revitalization of the North Shore business and cultural districts should, in my mind, be of interest to people all over our community. We are too small and tight knit a community for the vast majority of us to think any differently.

We are just about to vote on the proposed North Shore Plan - a document three years in the making, with broad based community input. If you are interested in specific areas of the North Shore, there is likely to be proposals and details in the plan. Feel free to ask any questions.

A very brief and basic summary of what the North Shore Plan attempts to achieve, in my view: a more complete, accessible area. Buildings of increased height on Tranquille Rd from the Overlander Bridge to Fortune Drive, incorporating both residential and commercial, creating a more vibrant street life. Over time, transitioning from the auto malls at the foot of the Overlander bridge, and moving toward restaurants, boutiques, and more "people" places. Green building, crime prevention principles woven throughout.

The new Holiday Inn is being built as we speak. The new "Green" medical building across from the dilapitated Village Hotel is being planned. The Spirit Square public square should be complete by October. And I had a great lunch today at the recently opened Zorba's Greek Restaurant, kitty corner to Cowboy Coffee.

Crime in Downtown Kamloops...solutions?

Was approached by a downtown business the other day regarding criminal activity in the city centre. These folks were entirely frustrated in a spike they are seeing. They have recently had windows broken, and their outside walls grafittied.

Deb Delyzer, from the Look Boutique downtown, had much worse happen when she was not only robbed but sprayed with a strange substance. Much of her inventory got the spraying as well, and she will now have to close for months to get her store restocked.

I know there are a couple of intiatives ongoing to help address the issue:

• The RCMP has downtown foot patrols.
• The Mayor and the city manager have held a meeting with the RCMP leadership, the bylaws supervisor, the crime prevention officer, and the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Area (KCBIA) president and manager to discuss the issue.
• The  KCBIA is looking at starting a security coop that would pool participating member's money to hire (a) security guard(s)
• The KCBIA summer time ambassador patrol and city bylaw's officers are on the lookout for suspicious activity.
• Outreach workers from the ASK wellness centre and other agencies offer assistance to street people downtown. These folks often get preyed on by hard core criminals and perhaps even get roped into criminal activity.

The question: is there other things to consider?

Would be happy to hear any feedback.