Reminder -- GVAC meeting.

GVAC meeting - October14, 2010. -- Kekuli Bay Boat launch.

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Readers Write -- Parks Service Review History.

In January 2007 the City of Vernon initiated 19 Service Reviews one of which was the Parks and Recreation Service Function.

Later in April of 2007 Vernon withdrew their request for a Service Review of Parks.

Following that in June of 2007 Electoral Areas B&C re-initiated a service review of the Parks Function. The Parks Service Review sat dormant for 2 years.

In the spring/summer of 2009 Coldstream brought forth issues with the maintenance level in their local parks, the parks maintenance contract as well as issues with annual budgeting. The maintenance issue revolved around the ability to respond to issues more promptly and provide a better level of service than what was being provided. What was asked for was that Coldstream deliver the parks maintenance contract for Coldstream Parks just as Vernon delivers the parks maintenance for Vernon Parks. Vernon presently delivers the park maintenance for all parks. The budget issue was better input on a staff, political and local community level into the budget process. The existing procedure is that City of Vernon staff prepare the annual budget and then forward it onto Al McNiven, GVAC Parks Manger for oversight and presentation to GVAC and finally the NORD Board.

In the fall of 2009 NORD Administration decided to activate the dormant Parks Service Review and a facilitator was hired and started the process in December. The process has proceeded with many iterations, however the addressing of Coldstream’s original concerns remains the primary concern of Coldstream Council. As well, Coldstream requested that Arts and Culture be a separate function from Parks and Rec. What has surfaced from the City of Vernon is the desire to solely control all the facilities within their boundaries apart from the Wesbuild and Performing Arts Centres. The initial move by Vernon to take sole control of the recreation centre and civic arena resulted in Coldstream's counter offer of the reduced payment due to no representation and Electoral Area C's stand to provide only grants in the future.

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Anonymous letter re: Kekuli Boat Launch.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post

"GVAC meeting - October14, 2010. -- Kekuli Bay Boat Launch...":

hey Coldstreamer you are always spouting off about boats causing enviromental damage to the lake...where is your proof?

You consider peeing in the lake enviromental damage? According to the people that actually know anything about the subject, boats have very little enviromental impact on the lake and especially no impact on our drinking water.

Call the people that actually test and determine what is affecting the drinking water and they will tell you YOU ARE WRONG!

There are far greater concerns but small minded people like you and the current bunch of Coldstream councillors feel content to sit back and blame it all on boaters.

Get a life and quit interferring with mine!

Do your research and back up your claims or just get on to complaining about something else.

Your unfounded attack on boating is growing old.

The above literary masterpiece was sent to me by an anonymous admirer in response to my post announcing the proposal to increase the Kekuli Bay boat launch facilities. Note subject: increase the boat launching facilities.

His response: “Get a life and quit interferring with mine!”

Obviously anonymous’ beef is not the lack of boat launching facilities but the “shortage”of boat launching at Kalavista where anonymous would have maximum interference with residents’ enjoyment of their properties.

Obviously, anonymous has a different definition of pollution than most of us do. Boats do not pollute despite burning up large quantities of fuel. Peeing, defecating into the water appears to be OK. Inconveniencing others is just par for the course. Nothing would satisfy anonymous but increasing the Kalavista boat launch to satisfy all comers regardless of finances and inconvenience to residents.

Council must consider all factors not just the convenience of boaters. Council has worked with GVAC and the Provincial Parks Branch to try to provide more boat launching facilities. We succeeded, enjoy the benefits!

And in future, use your spell checker!

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GVAC meeting - October14, 2010. -- Kekuli Bay Boat launch.

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A presentation by BC Parks might be of interest to many dealing with the upgrade of the Kekuli Bay Boat Launch.




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Duteau Creek water supply report - Latest report on Duteau reservoir (September 30, 2010)

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Council Meeting, October 12, 2010

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Selected Articles - Morning Star News

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Photo gallery -- Polson Park. Courtesy: Debbie Gibson.

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Crash Injures Three – Pete McIntyre, KISS FM

RCMP investigate three vehicle crash in Coldstream. Three people were taken to Vernon hospital after a three vehicle crash in Coldstream this morning.

RCMP spokesman Gord Molendyk says a pick up truck appears to have run a red light at Highway 6 and Aberdeen Road before 8:30. It collided with a dump truck and a following car either swerved to miss the vehicles-- or bumped into them -- and rolled.

Two people suffered minor injuries and a third suffered more serious internal injuries.

The man driving the pick up --who suffered minor injuries--was issued a violation ticket.

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Traffic Notice -Coldstream!

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A hard working politician!

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Draft Parks Deal for Greater Vernon -- Kate Bouey, Sun FM

Vernon mayor says everyone should pay fair share.

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It doesn't appear as if the talking is over despite a draft agreement on Greater Vernon parks and recreation. Vernon Mayor Wayne Lippert says a proposal brought forward by Coldstream and Electoral Area C would see the City take over responsibility for the Rec Centre. He's not particularly happy with what could be a costly proposition. ``Personally, I believe that they should stay in, paying the same share that they have been all along,'' says the mayor. He adds that there are pros as well as cons. Lippert says on the `pro' side, the City could go ahead with work around the Rec Centre or on the Civic Arena without input from other communities. Revisions are being done to the draft which Lippert says he will then take to city council for discussion.

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Central Coldstream Survey

In 2008 the District of Coldstream initiated the Coldstream Sustainability Initiative planning process with the anticipated outcome of establishing policies and practices that encourage greater integration of the economic, environmental and societal systems, all of which support our community as a whole. When considering "sustainable development" the location, composition, density and design of new development projects, commercial and residential, have a significant and cumulative impact on our community's ability to sustain a healthy economy, provide a reasonable cost of living, provide effective and accessible public services, protect our environment and ensure we all continue to enjoy a high quality of life.

The Sustainability Initiative is fully funded from a federal program called Integrated Community Sustainability Planning (ICSP). Phase three, of the five phase process, is to select an area that would undergo a sustainability review case study. Council chose to use the "Town Centre" for this review. The Town Centre, now commonly referred to as Central Coldstream, was originally included in the Official Community Plan (OCP) in 1998. The OCP identifies specific policies with respect to land use and the types of commercial, social, recreation, institutional, park and recreation activities that would be permitted/accepted in the "Town Centre" area.

Public consultation is an important and valuable part of the sustainability review process. In June of this year a public open house was held at the Coldstream Women's Institute Hall to gather comments and feedback as to what the community envisioned for the Central Coldstream area. The comments received from the open house re-affirmed the policies that are already included in the OCP. In an attempt to gain a more precise understanding of the types of services the community would like to see in this area, Council approved conducting a survey to solicit the public to gather this information.

The Survey is now available for the public to be completed and is located below. All surveys must be returned to the District office no later than October 22, 2010

* Survey - 150Kb PDF
* Draft Report - 4.24MB PDF

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Selected Articles - Morning Star News

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Clarification is needed here. My comments "...The solution, according to Coun. Gyula Kiss, is to use Okanagan Lake, “which is significantly bigger.” is somewhat out of context. What I was referring to was the study which indicated that significantly more boats were launched on Kalamalka Lake than on Okanagan Lake although Okanagan Lake is significantly bigger. For reference check out the attached document.

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Greater Vernon Water - Reduce Water Use Notice

Press Release, October 4, 2010

The Grid Road project in Coldstream must relocate a large water supply main serving our Kalamalka Lake customers. This work must be done soon to allow paving of the road before winter. Unseasonably warm weather increased the water demand to the point where the remaining raw water mains will be stressed to provide full water supply.

The utility is therefore requesting our water customers on the Kalamalka Lake system to reduce their water use, where possible, for the week starting the morning of Wednesday October 6th and ending the evening of Wednesday October 13th unless otherwise notified. This includes but is not limited to:

* Altering automatic lawn water sprinklers to a reduced irrigation period. For instance halving the automatic sprinkler period. Lawn watering is currently the largest demand on our system.
* Reducing clothes washing during the specified period of restrictions.
* Home Car Washing.
* Paved surfaces washing.

If voluntary water restrictions do not reduce the water use enough, mandatory restrictions will be put into place.

Greater Vernon Water is taking additional measures to reduce the impact of the reduced water supply, and a notification will be updated as the program progresses.

If you have any questions, please contact Greater Vernon Water at 250-550-3700

For more information:

Al Cotsworth, Utilities Manger
Greater Vernon Water, RDNO
E-mail: info@rdno.ca

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Readers write - - More sewer issues.

Last month I have received a complaint from Mr Jack Borden, owner of Coldstream Meadows (CM), objecting to my comments at the August 23rd Council meeting (see attached Document 1 a&b).

At this meeting I justified my protest vote against the proposed sewer rate increases as follows:

“The previous Council (2003-2005) took money from reserves and built a sewer line to Coldstream Meadows. That’s why we don’t have enough money now. We had reserves for these kind of occasions. (Morning Star, August 25)”

After considerable discussions Mr Borden forwarded an email to me requesting that I publish it on my blog and clarify the comments. The email in question is also attached (Document 2 a&b).

My clarification follows.

The outgoing Council of 2005 voted to remove about $665,000 from the capital reserves of the sewer utility to extend the sewer line from McClounie to Aberdeen Road. This action was done at the last meeting of Council prior to the 2005 elections and final adoption was done after the election at the last Council meeting of that Council. The question is: why was Council in such a hurry to spend those funds before the new Council was installed?

Here are some clues.

In October, 2004 CM, over the signature of Mr Borden, “encouraged” Council to extend the sewer line from McClounie to Aberdeen Road (Document 3 a&b).

This was done in anticipation of Council’s approval of the expansion of CM with the requirement that the development connect to municipal sewer service at the developer’s expense. “We do have a self interest in seeing the sewer extended...” wrote Mr Borden. At that time the closest sewer line was at McClounie Road. To be sure, I do not blame the developer for trying to get the best deal for the development but it is up to Council to ensure that the municipality gets some benefit from development instead of financing parts of it.

Council had staff hand deliver questionnaires to each household along the proposed sewer extension asking residents if they would be in favour of the extension. The overwhelming response was a resounding "NO". Most of those residents are yet to be connected to sewer. Thus, the question is: did they benefit?

Most residents along the new line did not benefit: in fact they are being charged an annual tax of $97.54 for 20 years as their contribution to a sewer line they did not want. This tax is charged even if they are not connected. Incidentally, it appears that CM is not among those charged the above tax.

Old customers of the utility whose funds were used to finance the project did not benefit from the new sewer line. They are the ones who lost the most and still keep paying for the ill advised decision their Council made. The current increase of sewer rates is a direct result of losing nearly a million dollars out of the utility’s reserves.

As Mr Borden states his contribution to the entire sewer line from CM to McClounie Road was $825,000 less the $250,000 Council of 2006-2008 spent on buying out the latecomer fees to which Mr Borden was entitled to collect for ten or fifteen years. A sum of $575,000 appears to be quite a good deal for about 2.5 km stretch of sewer line extension.

A previous development, Highlands, was required to connect to sewer at the developer’s expense. The developer financed all cost related to constructing a sewer line to 15th Street by the Health Unit including storage reservoirs and a lift station. That was the policy for Coldstream and it still is. Just three years ago a developer was required to build a sewer line down on Aberdeen Road if he was to receive the development permit. The development never happened presumably due to the economic down turn.

Thus, strictly speaking, previous Council did not build a sewer line to CM but CM definitely benefitted from Council’s action.

As for using capital reserves: there are all sorts of capital projects those reserves could have been used for such as replacing lift stations and replacing the main sewer line when the capacity is exceeded by increased sewage users. I should know, I signed the bylaw establishing those reserves.

The buy out funds were directly removed from the operational reserves, highly unethical and probably challengeable in court. However, not many of us have enough money to challenge our own Council which already has our money to use in defence of their action.

All those nice things, like removal of septic fields from CM’s property, connection of various customers along the line to the sewer system would have happened had CM constructed the entire line and started to charge latecomer fees to those who connected.

Once again, I did not blame CM or Mr Borden for Council’s action, I blamed Council of the day and my quote in the Morning Star reflects that.

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Readers write - - Stillm more on boat launch.

Revelation re: Kekuli Bay Boat Launch

Returning from Costco today I noticed that there is a south-bound turning lane on highway 97 to access the road to Kekuli Bay. The north access back to Vernon has no merging lane, but there is an option for those who don't want to put the pedal to the metal: use the old scenic highway and re-access 97 just past the lookout. Much more scenic, easier on the tranny, clutch etc and there is good visibility of on coming traffic. Myself, a matron could manage this with an r.v. or boat/ trailer combo.

Re the slope of the access to Kekuli, my home driveway is much more tricky and I backup the boy's toys during all weathers without burning any clutches or ditching. Kinloch is a popular boat-launch, it seems that given its popularity very few shrinking violets seem to avoid the steep decline and tight turns.

Bottom-line: if someone as femme and long- in-the- tooth as I am can negotiate a "steep" boat-launch access using a stick, I wonder why someone with a macho automatic truck can't?

Who would not want to preserve the integrity of neighbourhoods and recreational thoroughfares? It's a mom and apple pie choice, and everyone likes mom and apple pie.

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Coldstream, OBWB and NORD meetings for the week of October 4-8.

Coldstream Committee Meetings October 4, 2010

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Okanagan Basin Water Board Meeting, October 5,2010

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Regional District Meetings, October 6, 20101

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Selected Articles - Morning Star News

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Selected Articles - Morning Star News

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Readers write - - More on boat launch.

“anonymous said...Did these boats just magically appear or have they always been here? The only real intolerable nuisance is the handfull of complainers that expect the lake to all of a sudden turn into "On Golden Pond" A good neighbor would be tolerable and put up with a little inconvience for two short months!" (September 29, 2010 10:47)

Good suggestion !

The more stoic "good neighbours" among us can grit their teeth and "tolerate" a "little inconvenience".

As for the rest of us more sensitive types we'll run out and buy earplugs and white noise machines for those of us trying to read, listen to music or rest in our homes.
The downside is that families who prefer their experience of the lake in the fresh air will be compelled to enjoy the ambiance of the beach in mute silence, ear-plugs firmly in place.

Thank you for reminding us that hey, there are ten months to enjoy the lake in peace. Imagine a vacation spending quiet days at the beach with your family. You can don wet suits and set up cabanas to protect your family from the weather. I'm sure teachers won't mind compiling a week or two of work so their students don't fall behind.

The protective cabana will ensure the work won't get wet or blown around. Mom and Pa better rush out to Canadian Tire while they still have picnic table screen-tents designed to keep the weather out while dinner is prepared and consumed.

It will be a novel experience to gaze up at the rise of a fresh crisp moon rather than basking in the last light of a glowing sun slipping down past the hills.

As for those boats "just magically" appearing, I doubt we, the complainers would have held our clucking tongues in silence as the splash and drone of boats churned up our precious lake in years past.

The volume of this issue is growing at the same rate as the volume of powerboats and the nuisance created thereby.

It is human nature to express unfortunate situations as they develop and then forget them once the issue is resolved. Who has time to nitpick over every thing that is a public nuisance? The squeaky wheel does get the grease. And too many boats in a confined area make one formidable "squeak".

And speaking of "On Golden Pond" according to Wikipedia's entry on the film "On Golden Pond" it seems that this idyll too, was not as pristine and benign as one would imagine:

" While filming the scene where Fonda and Hepburn were watching the loons on the lake, the speedboat that zoomed by and disturbed them was so forceful it overturned their canoe in one take; Fonda was immediately taken out of the water and wrapped up in blankets as his health was fragile by that time."

No one wants a deadly encounter with a larger more powerful water-craft.

As the saying goes: keep it simple stupid:

Motorized craft can more easily travel away from congested areas than can non-motorized craft or swimmers. Power boaters can quickly access almost all of the 42 kms of Kalamalka shoreline. What's the big issue?

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