Happy New Year....sort of

Sheesh, are we ever missing el Nino!
Weather and other stuff...
'Coz la Nina is turning out to be a very bad girl, with -17C mornings.
And daytime temps barely rising by 5 or 6 degrees.

Feels like a new Little Ice Age right now...

And my Mom's in hospital; chiefly with age related symptoms as she's 93.
She had frequently been losing her balance, and with the fear of falling, she adopted more sedentary days.
That led to other things.
But she's receiving excellent care at the new hospital tower, in a private room with her own bathroom.

A wonderful walk-in shower; note the designer wallpaper above the tiles.

Why don't our homes have bathrooms like this?
People would be able to age in place...longer.

Back to Mom's situation. 
There'll be a discussion with Interior Health in the next day or two about the urgency for Mom's assisted living need, despite the purported "6-8 month wait" list.


Yes, the New Year.
As widely reported, it's the time for price increases to take effect.
Hydro, insurance, water, medical premiums, property taxes etc. etc.; the list goes on.

No wonder people drink.

But wait until you see your property tax increases!
Remember that assessments each year are based on the previous July's assessed value!
And we all know what happened to property values in B.C. last summer.

For that reason, don't feel placated by your City's reported "2-something percent" increases.
As the euphemism goes "cost of living increase...my arse".
Sounds like assessments are going up by almost 8 per cent...(some as high as 30 per cent)...without any announced increase in your community's mill rates.  Yet.

What else is new?

Oh yes, received a note that my submission to Hydro's request for public comment on their tiered rate for electricity was accepted before the end of November deadline.  After a bit of digging, discovered my submission here.
If you're ever suffering from insomnia, here's the list of all the submissions....scroll down to the very bottom and click on “E Exhibits – Letters of Comment”.

And the threat of huge water increases deserves a mention.
Same ole, same ole in many ways, with Greater Vernon Water saying that rates will go up by about 2 per cent.

"...all they have been doing

 over the last several years

 is taking our money

 without spending any of it."

 Coldstream Councillor Pat Cochrane                   

Highlands Golf--and the other much larger irrigation users--will be hit especially hard in 2017.

The proposal is for ICI customers (industrial, commercial, institutional) to pay residential water rates for the first 1,000 cubic metres.

That proposal is one segment of the recommended 2017 Water Rate Pricing submitted to the Greater Vernon Advisory Committee (some of whom have residences that are on well water and, frankly, probably don't give a damn what water rates are!)

The 40-page proposal is worth a read, folks!

The proposal is for rates to increase almost 4 per cent annually for each of the next three years.

One very interesting comment from Coldstream councillor Pat Cochrane was reported in the newspaper:  "At some point it gets a little silly to keep increasing the rates when you have money in the bank."  He concluded "...all they have been doing over the last several years is taking our money without spending any of it."  It took a long, long time but Councillor Gyula Kiss has a new ally in Councillor Cochrane. 


But don't believe that as it's with the typical condition that GVW imposes:  that they don't lose the revenue from large water users.  (Large water users doesn't include agricultural...'coz they don't pay bugger all to begin with, so the utility will NEVER lose those customers.  On the contrary, agriculture water use is increasing like mad, although it'll take the water utility a couple of years to report that).

A recent quote from letter-writer Jim Miles--whose sentiments mirror even the Occupy movement's meme--concluded a letter he submitted on another topic.  It went thus:

"...also know that the elites, the governments, the media and the powers continually lie to the populace, manufacturing consent for aggression, to serve their own interests, not the interests of the farmers, factory workers, labourers and the every day citizens of the world."

    Jim Miles...............

Jim Miles obviously isn't fooled.

Speaking of serving their own interests, have a look at this report of executive compensation.

"Feeling alone, despite being part of the 99 per cent," Kia would've said.

Ain't that the truth!

Is it 5 o'clock somewhere?
Probably in the boardrooms of the nation.

Thankfully, there's one very good thing: 

Grandson was loving the weather...

Thank God for grandchildren!

A lot of topics dumped into this one post...a catch-up.