Ask Any Realtor?

Seems another resident of the North Okanagan is teed off that "the town you have decided to live in is so bas-ackwards."

Here's his letter to the editor of the Morning Star, printed January 28, 2018:

"Communities are in need of change:

Welcome, all new residents of Vernon and Coldstream.  In case you are having some difficulty wondering why the town you have decided to live in is so bas-ackwards, you are not alone.

But give up now and pay no further attention because it is never going to change as long as Coldstream and Vernon keep the same old generation of councillors and mayors.  There are only two groups that the city is focused on -- the newly wed and the nearly dead.

If you are a bachelor or younger couple wanting to buy or rent a new condo here and not something built 20 years ago and outdated, good luck because the planning has never been developed for the younger working generation.  There are multiple condos constructed in 2017-18 for senior citizens, and the city has even decided to put some of them right downtown closest to the nightlife that Vernon barely has.

So you work out of town on a rotation, make pretty good money, but want to live somewhere with a strata and a no-maintenance yard?  Not in this city.  You are never going to be able to start small because there is nothing affordable.  Nothing even brand new for people that want to live in a high-density establishment. 

Yet Vernon has multiple empty lots in and around downtown that would be perfect for a high-rise development to be built.  Ask any realtor in Vernon.

"It does not matter if it is

 in the pouring spring rain or

the water-restricted days of summer,

 your water bill

 will still blow your mind

every single time."

Adam Maxnuk               

A local business thrives on citizens that spend money.  That is how the economy cycles.  Money needs to be spent and young people love to spend money.  Vernon city council has not been able to figure that one out.

You want to go to the beach?  Great idea.  Most of us live in the Okanagan for the outdoors.  You want to play some beach volleyball?  If you do, don't forget your steel-toed boots, as the sand is almost non-existent.  Nobody has thought to maybe add more sand to counter the sand depletion problem at the popular beaches.

To the new residents of Coldstream, before you look at your quarterly water bill, you are going to have to cancel that vacation you just booked.  It does not matter if it is in the pouring spring rain or the water-restricted days of summer, your water bill will still blow your mind every single time.

Coldstream isn't the little community it once was.  The council and mayor are pushing to have only commercial zoned development right across the street from where you take your son or daughter to Coldstream elementary school.

How does that make any sense at all.  
It doesn't.
Welcome to Coldstream."

Adam Maxnuk

from the internet

"What he omitted was that seniors don't spend (enough) money," Kia would've said.

Every community needs young people.
Young families.
Young families that have jobs.
Good-paying jobs that don't require a family member working out of town.

...Families that buy washing machines, theater tickets, pizza dinners, and shoes and coats.

Liberal Robber Barons

Mismanagement by British Columbia's previous government?
I should say so.

It's no secret that the B.C. Liberals have for years considered ICBC--and B.C. Hydro--their government's piggy bank, with "surplus" funds routinely pilfered to supplement the empty echos emanating from "General Revenue".

The Robber Barons are B.C.'s former Liberal government led by Christy Clark.

An ICBC $400 annual premium hike?
That's what may be necessary for every B.C. driver as ICBC's deficit is now slated to be $1.3 billion.
Yes, billion.
Unbelievable!
Especially since a mere three months ago, the ICBC deficit was expected to be a paltry $200 million.

But that was before the Liberals robbed ICBC of $1.2 billion!

Mike Smyth's story in the Province tells a horrific tale of not only mismanagement, but deceit, in particular by former Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong, who "stripped the controversial recommendation (for not acting on an Ernst and Young report in 2014) and keeping the information away from ICBC."

"Years of bad decisions and mismanagement by the former government have meant a fiscally unsustainable position at ICBC," a government briefing note is reported to have stated.  "We never expected to find this level of mismanagement by the previous government."

Crooked Christy Clark.

What's needed is an immediate return to private insurance.
But then what of ICBC's "debt"?

Get it back from former Liberal ministers?
And their highly-placed private donors?
Take it out of their hides?

"The Liberals have continually taken it out of ours," Kia would've said.

 ...and to think I used to be a B.C. Liberal!
My excuse is that there wasn't another choice in those days.

Farm Industry Review Board...January 30 at the Prestige Inn

UPDATE TO BLOG STORY (FROM BEACH RADIO) IS HERE.


I've been asked by Roxanne to notify current and former members of the Buchanan Road Residents Association--and anyone else interested--in farm practices that include helicopters, wind turbines and sprayers.

Here's the press release:

Date:  9:00 A.M. Tuesday Jan. 30, 2018 at the Prestige Inn 4411 32 Street, Vernon B.C.

Hello to All:

If anyone is interested in how the system works for farmers in "Right to Farm" legislation, there is a Farm Industry Review Board session at 9:00 a.m. at the Prestige Inn in Vernon on Jan. 30 and 31, 2018.  This is a legal and binding inquiry into the farm practices of Coral Beach Farms as it pertains to the use of helicopters, wind turbines and sprayers at their cherry orchard in Lavington on Buchanan Road.  This board is meeting in response to the complaints of two neighbours, Bob Learmonth and John Mitchell.  They will give evidence concerning the disruption of normal life brought about by this industrial farm.  For all of you who think these disruptions are minor - they are not.  It is unbearable, non stop (day and night) noise and chemical pollution throughout the spring, summer and fall.. B.C farm folk are tough; we all know what it takes to get a crop in....but no one is that tough.  This is different.  This is not farming...this is heavy industry with an agricultural output, and it is affecting an entire community. Our community.

This meeting is open to the public BUT there is no opportunity for any public input.  This is a legal procedure and the decision of the board here can force Coral Beach Farms to change their farm practices if they have been found to be "not normal" farm practices.  I encourage anyone who cares about stopping the detrimental effects of industrial farming to please come out and support our Lavington neighbours in their efforts to obtain a fair arbitration decision from FIRB.  As stated, you will not be allowed any input into this meeting.  Your very presence however can send a clear message to this government review board that here, in this neighbourhood, in this valley, we have people who care about the environment, about Fair Farm Practices, and about respect for your neighbours and your community.  Tell your friends.  The more faces in the crowd, the more this board has to listen.

This is ground zero in what will be allowed in Coldstream under Right to Farm legislation.  It is not just a Lavington issue anymore.  Forty-four acres on Coldstream Creek Road will be being planted in the spring by Coral Beach Farms (Peter McLean and family's property). Vernon will have its own 30-plus acres near Allenby Way and the airport courtesy of Coral Beach Farms.  More will follow.  Please come and lend your support while it can still make a difference.

Regards,

R. Ronan

North Warren Road Residents Association

(those people next to the other Coral Beach Farms 102 acre Cherry Orchard on Warren Road, Coldstream)

A Compelling Letter to Editor

Tax Shakedown

Bob Gendron's letter in the Wednesday, Jan. 17, Vernon Morning Star politely shed light on the municipal money shuffle, the wee brother of the provincial and federal shakedown.

As I have lost my PC-ness, I am going to write what a lot of us struggling common folk are thinking but may be afraid to say.  Many people's bread is buttered from those hollowed(sic) halls even if their conscience isn't.  I have nothing to lose and only a few future parking tickets to gain (if I could find a parking spot).

Our services provided by the city/municipalities are directly inverse to the exorbitant salaries and pensions paid to the participants of government largess.  The cost to do private business with permitting, "consulting", red tape regulations and restrictions is off the charts because the government hates competition and can damn well do as they please.

Such as not putting in a simple traffic light at 1/20 the cost of plowing a road through a beautiful green space and eventually a traffic problem 20 times worse.

See how "I am from the government and here to help" inversion works?

Our old roads are a travesty and the new ones reconstructed (or plowed through a bird sanctuary) have abysmal planning.  I avoid the downtown core like the plague.

Good luck trying to sell me a house on 20th St. or Allenby with a four-wide skateboard track running through the parking spots.

Snow plowing is based on the budget--how much is left over from compensation clauses--instead of safety.  I am not riding my 10-speed through misplaced snow banks five months of the year while Fortis tags me for another $40 a month courtesy of a global warming bureaucrat making four times more than I do.

Or where one arm of the government forces $20 million spent on a water plant only to have another army say:  "No, not good enough, upgrade for $50 million".  Too bad, so sad for Joe Taxpayer trying to make ends meet in the 9th worst city for crime in Canada.  If I hear one more time from the city human resources or the controller that we need to pay these people "competitively" to bring in the best, I might choke.  Mr. Gendron, there is a reason it is called 'City Haul'."

Jay Langdon

Can't say I disagree with most of his letter.

"Recognize your town in that description?" Kia would've said.

 Several, in fact.

NAFTA's End?

A reprint of "End of NAFTA could save us from ourselves",
published in The Province, Sunday, January 21, 2018, by David Orchard, @dorchard@sasktel.net


"In 1854, the Canadian colonies entered a free-trade agreement with the United States.  In 1866, the Americans cancelled it, believing the Canadian colonies had become so dependent on the U.S. economically that they would ask, or beg, for entry into the American Union.

Instead, the Canadians decided to take the bold step of independence.  They negotiated a union of the Canadian colonies and began building a Canadian-owned and controlled economy, including the world's longest railway.

Canada's next major free trade agreement with the U.S. was in 1988 (FTA), later expanded to include Mexico in 1994 (NAFTA).  Under their terms, much of Canada's economy has been bought up by American owners--everything from Hudson's Bay Company to Tim Hortons and Stelco.

Whole industries have been taken over by U.S. investors, including both our national railways.  U.S. corporations have the right to sue Canada for any law or regulation that causes them loss or damage and which they feel contravenes the spirit of NAFTA.  (Canada has been sued three dozen times and paid out more than $200 million in NAFTA penalties).

However, the U.S. government may again save us from ourselves.

The U.S. is demanding even greater concessions from Canada in a "renegotiation" of NAFTA, including sweeping rights to buy up what is left of Canada's economy.  It has stated it is ready to trigger the six-month cancellation clause of NAFTA.  In response, the Canadian government has spent millions trying to convince it not to do so.

As in 1866, Canada has a choice:  to integrate itself even deeper into the U.S. economy, giving up the dream of Canadian independence, or it can do what it did in 1866:  step forward and build a Canadian-owned, world-class economy.  It can stop pleading with the U.S. to keep NAFTA and emerge as a significant competitor to our neighbour, not its colony.

Before Canada signed the FTA and NAFTA, it trade with the U.S. and the rest of the world under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), now the World Trade Organization (WTO).  If the FTA and NAFTA were terminated, Canada would automatically return to trading with the U.S. under the WTO, under whose terms we did much better than under the FTA and NAFTA.

Under the GATT/WTO, Canada had allies and the U.S. was not able to impose punishing tariffs on our softwood lumber exports or our aircraft industry.  It was unable to destroy our wheat marketing system, buy up our railways or shut down our steel industry.  

Norway, much smaller than Canada, declined to enter the European Union although it was under great pressure to do so.  It retained control of its oil and gas and other industries through publicly owned corporations.  The result for Norway is no debt, no deficit, free child care and university education, virtually non-existent homelessness, free dental care for all under 18, generous old age pensions and a $1-trillion surplus in its sovereign wealth fund.

Canada, by contrast, after almost three decades of "free trade" with the U.S., has more than $1.2 trillion in federal and provincial debt, large deficits at every level, no national child or dental care, high university tuition, miserly old age pensions, years of massive budget cuts, and giveaway prices for its exports of oil, gas, timber and minerals.

For 150 years, great Canadian leaders have warned that without an economic border with the United States, we would soon no longer have a political border.

We once owned the world's largest farm machinery maker, Massey Harris, headquartered in Toronto, built the world's largest and most respected marketer of wheat and barley, the Canadian Wheat Board, based in Winnipeg; created a great transcontinental railway system, beginning in Montreal; and saw Vancouver's shipyards produce the beautiful Fast Cat ferry.

Instead of spending hundreds of billions on foreign-made machinery, electronics, automobiles, ships, fighter jets and passenger aircraft (even payroll systems for federal employees!), we can build our own, both for the domestic and export market.

We once designed and built the world's most advanced jet interceptor, the Avro Arrow, so we know it can be done.  With Canada's resources and ingenuity, it could create a prosperous, domestically controlled economy that would give Canadians multiple benefits, security and pride of ownership.  All that is required is the will that drove our ancestors to create an alternate power in North America.  As George-Etienne Cartier, the great Quebecois Father of Confederation, put it, "Now everything depends on our patriotism."


from "Sunday Opinion", The Province newspaper, Jan. 21/18

from internet

"Why does Canada always get the short end of the stick," Kia would've asked, "when it sits across the table from Americans?"

Are their lawyers--and/or politicians--better than ours?

 

Again and Again

Here's where I agree with repetition.

Impact.
Importance.
Innuendo.

All those things.


I believe it was necessary for the Morning Star newspaper to include Al Cotsworth's letter twice...the first time was here.

So here's the second time (January 19/17) the Morning Star printed Al Cotsworth's letter about the sale of the McMechan reservoir site.

LAND SALE UNFAIR:  "On the front page of the Nov. 29th edition of the Vernon Morning Star, I saw where the City of Vernon is selling the McMechan reservoir site to a developer.
The reservoir is immediately west of Mutrie Road between 39th and 43rd Avenues.  Page 6 of that Morning Star issue shows a notice of the sale with a map.
The site contains approximately 7.9 hectares (19.6 acres) and the city has reached a negotiated selling price of $6.49 million, or $821,500 per hectare ($331,000 per acre).
I have no idea if this price is fair or not, but I agree with Vernon Coun. Scott Anderson that the free market should have determined a price, rather than a negotiated price with a single developer.

No doubt the city used at least one professional land appraiser, but this is still an estimate.  The free market also precludes the accusation of favouritism.
Al Cotsworth"

"Innuendo?...how about Pork Barrel Patronage," Kia would've offered.


Whatever it is, thanks for sending your letter to the newspaper, Al Cotsworth!
  

Annual Water Usage vs. Allocation

I finally got around to updating the water meter readings--and costs.
The update link is located here.

The historical consumption table is:

HIGHLANDS GOLF WATER USAGE (Water allocation = 10.0035 acres.  4.048 ha = 22,275 m3 allowed annually)
YEAR	USAGE	% OF ALLOWABLE USE
2011	2,986 m3	13.4%
2012	2,953 m3	13.2%
2013	3,162 m3	14.2%
2014	2,819 m3	12.7%
2015	3,576 m3	16.1%
2016	2,840 m3	12.8%
2017	3,394 m3	15.2%
HIGHLANDS GOLF used only 15.2% of its paid-up water allocation during 2017 !!!

HERstory

The title isn't a typo.
It's the opposite of HIStory.

This is about pay inequality for women.
We women have all been--and the majority, no doubt, still are--touched by it.
It's insidious.
While initially a reader may think I'm referencing the news of sexual harassment that's been at the forefront of news for many months, that's not my topic despite it likely being part of Cause and Effect.

Men make more money than women.
Even for doing the same job.

I experienced that in my working life, but won't go into details about me.
The principals in my case are still living, plus it's too late for me as I've retired.
It didn't begin in my generation either; my Mother suffered its effects too.
But I have a daughter.

Women, the victims, can't expect "the system" to be the catalyst for its own demise; women themselves must instigate change.
And the time has arrived.


Carrie Gracie of the BBC did it, story here.

Wikipedia does a good job of explaining the sheer depth of wage slavery.
It takes many many forms, but that's what it is.

Put very simply, women workers were needed during World War II because men were serving.  Rosie the Riveter is a famous example.  After the war ended, armaments manufacturing switched to a new gear in a new economy where women could augment a family's meager income by working in offices as clerks and machine operators in textile mills, for example.

The advent of more widely available and effective birth control measures allowed women to plan--indeed, space out pregnancies--and economic benefits to the family could accrue as the woman was able to work outside the home.  Little progress was evidenced as many religious and cultural tenets prevented women from achieving the potential of selecting a future for themselves.  Often dependent first on parents, then husbands, and ultimately being responsible for the care of their children and home, change was slow to occur.

The Free World's democracies routinely pat themselves on their constitutional backs for being the first to enshrine human rights.
While spouting the merits of human rights to developing countries, these same democracies ignore the travesty of pay inequality.
Such hypocrisy!

Equal pay for equal work is a right.
Do it for your daughters.

from Google images

Then thank Carrie Gracie for having the courage to make it happen.

Make herstory happen.
In this generation.

Opaque Transparency?

Because it certainly isn't transparent...so it must be opaqueness.

Reprinted below are two letters to Morning Star regarding land sale of the McMechan Reservoir.

Dec.31/17 from Al Cotsworth, who was formerly the Manager of Greater Vernon Water:

On the front page of the Nov. 29 Morning Star I saw that the City of Vernon is selling the McMechan reservoir site to a developer. The reservoir is immediately west of Mutrie Road between 39th and 43rd Avenues and page 6 of the issue shows a notice of the sale with a map. The site contains approximately 7.9 hectares [19.6 acres] and the City has reached a negotiated selling price of $6.49 million, or $821,500 per hectare [$331,000 per acre]. I have no idea if this price is fair or not, however I agree with Councillor Scott Anderson that the free market should have determined a price, rather than a negotiated price with a single developer. No doubt the City used at least one professional land appraiser, but, this is still an estimate. The free market also precludes the accusation of favouritism.
Al Cotsworth


and the second letter, also from Dec.31/17:

I am writing in response to the article that appeared in The Morning Star on Nov. 29, “Old reservoir sold to developer”.
From reading this article, it appears that a developer approached the city with a plan to develop the property and the deal is being negotiated.
I was upset when I read that the land is being sold to a developer without going to tender. Isn’t it shocking that there does not appear to be a governance structure in place that mandates that transactions of this magnitude be put out to tender?
Even given the fact that price is sometimes not the most important or only consideration – a Request for Bids/Proposals can establish the criteria under which all bidders will be evaluated equally.
As it stands, how can we be sure that the best option for our beautiful city was chosen?
Deb Turnbull

Clear as mud.

Nothing's changed, it seems.

The Holidays are Over

...and thankfully so.

It's been difficult this year.

Between the brutally cold temperatures and snow, and family members sick with the flu, I'm glad things have finally settled down.  I developed bronchitis just before Christmas, my 94 year old Mom was sick but still managed to make it to our Christmas dinner.  And yes, I managed to cook dinner for eight!

Husband's auntie, almost 90, made it for Christmas dinner with her 60 year old bachelor son who is here from Calgary caring for her following a difficult surgery.  Bless my daughter for doing kitchen clean-up that night as I was plain tuckered.

Husband got sick with the flu just after Christmas, and yesterday our 3-1/2 year old grandson became sick to his stomach while he was here for his normal Thursday babysitting session.  Fortunately it was just a one-day stomach flu and he's bounced back nicely today I heard.  Husband's better too.

We had a pleasant evening with friends last week...made even nicer because we simply pulled two pizzas out of the freezer.

The Christmas decorations came down yesterday, the latest ever!
I often take the tree down before New Year's but not this year...I didn't have much energy after being ill.

Stanley Park, railroad

Other friends went to the Coast and sent the above lovely night-time photo of the miniature train station and decorations at Stanley Park.  I thanked them with a text that it was -19C; they replied it was -1C.
I told them we had another eight inches of snow; they replied there was a skiff on the ground in Vancouver.  And so it went, back and forth.

Grandson (at right) thrilled that he is now going into the next stage of lessons.

Silver Star instructors are famous for teaching little kids to ski!  Our grandson now enters the "Ready Teddies" program in early February, having completed his "Lil Rippers" lessons.

two cock pheasants in the birch tree, above the feeders

The deep snow has been hard on wildlife.

I have a suet feeder as well as a black oil sunflower feeder in the above-pictured birch tree.  Twice a day I fill the seed feeder!  It's as though I have the only birdfood in Coldstream...finches, chickadees (my favourites!), juncos and, yes, quail and magpies.

Seeing two pheasants high up in the birch tree shows how desperate wildlife is for food with the deep snow.  Deer and coyote tracks crisscross our acreage, some tracks are only 50 feet from the residence (likely because Kia is no longer with us).

Yes, Christmas and New Years are both over.

from internet

Hope everyone has a healthy and happy 2018.

OK, healthy anyway...happy may be a long shot for some folks!
Higher rates are again on the horizon...property taxes, hydro?, water rates, insurance (all three: commercial, residence, and vehicle), commercial supplies.

And thank goodness for a temperature warm-up!  Yay!