John O'Fee is joking, I hope

In Councillor John O'Fee's latest "Council Comments" Column, he focuses on the differing elevations in Kamloops and the challenges this fact presents to providing and maintaining public infrastructure and services.  I've heard John make this argument quite a bit, especially around city budget time when all the different expenses of running city hall operations are discussed, debated, and ultimately decided.

And I don't think this is a bad argument. I would simply add that city councillors would also be wise to make sure to ensure that, even with our geographic challenges, city hall still does everything it can to keep costs down. This would make John's argument even better, in my humble opinion.

Now, the part where I hope he has joking. It's the very last sentence of his column that has me hoping. Here is the context:

If you are wondering why Calgary seems to cool off so much at night, consider this.

Even at the top of Aberdeen you are still about 150 metres below the elevation of downtown Calgary.

A hike to the top of Mount Peter (the higher peak about behind Mount Paul) gets you to the elevation of the Saddledome.

I'm glad we don't have to pump our water to that height.

At least not yet.

(emphasis added)

Now, I am looking out my window onto Mount Peter as I type this, and its hard for anyone to imagine residential development up that slope. But, what really worries me is potential development pressure for more sprawl in Kamloops. I really hope that Kamloopsians don't allow anymore development that unecessarily increase our greenhouse gas emissions, especially in light of new peer reviewed research on climate change like this.

You can find Councillor John O'Fee's column most Mondays in the Kamloops Daily News. Always good food for thought.

Comments

[Grant Fraser]

I'm sure he means the comment about sprawl. The Sagebrush Hotel they pulled down used to be at the edge of town. Its now closer to the center of town than the edge. Truth is that Kamloops is one of the least efficient towns in Canada.

[Arjun Singh]

Grant, I am not so sure that John is a big proponent of sprawl. In fact, when I was in first on council, I remember John bringing up the idea of allowing loft living spaces on Victoria street and other commercial streets downtown.

I think there have been steps made to make city hall more efficient, for example through the National Quality Institute program. And some city departments report to council efficiency benchmarks, and success in meeting these benchmarks.

[Bridge Sanderson]

Curitiba! Curitiba! Curitiba!
Does anyone in the city planning department look at other world cities such as, Curitiba! for ideas on how to grow, and be energy efficient, using things we already have. Lets get people out of cars onto buses that work like a skytrain, but wouldnt be a huge cost. Then lets look at that urban myth, The Singh Street Bridge as a plan. Hey, and then maybe look to develope on the empty land in Brock. HMMMMMM. Fix and renew what we have first.
Oh and I would happily pax taxes for that.

[Grant Fraser]

Arjun, I didn't mean to suggest O'Fee was in favor of sprawl. Just that he sees the probability of it.

[John O'Fee]

Since you are wondering, the column was not about sprawl per se (which I agree will be a big challenge for this community). The column was about the challenges we face as a city of over 85,000 crammed into a steep valley. Elevation differences (as well as stretching up river valleys) are going to dictate a lot of land use and create a lot of expense that we wouldn't see if we were flat and square. Flat and square cities are generally cheaper to run but they don't have much of a view.

[Arjun Singh]

Thanks John for your comment. Look forward to going for coffee soon.