Showing posts with label Al Cotsworth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Cotsworth. Show all posts

Saturday, February 3, 2018

File Photo Faux Pas?


There's a downside to using old (file) photos as this Morning Star newspaper story proves.

OK, maybe this is nit-picking.

But Al Cotsworth--shown at left in the photo below--has retired.
Long ago, actually.
So stating that regional politicians and civic staff have completed the overhaul of the Greater Vernon Master Water Plan, which now has Interior Health's approval, is the wrong photo to use after such a monumentally long and tediously-choreographed (by GVAC politicians) process.

Morning Star photo...stock file photo

After years of review, not without controversy from residents, the article states "It is a more affordable plan that will meet provincial standards and ensure the utility is sustainable into the future".

More affordable?
For whom?
Residents?
or Greater Vernon Water?

"...ensure the utility is sustainable into the future" is the clincher.
We residents know what that means.

"...continual increases in water rates that see people looking for homes elsewhere in the Okanagan," Kia would've said.

So, yes, an old photo is the least of residents' problems.
The North Okanagan will keep the distinction of having the highest water rates.




Friday, January 19, 2018

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!
  

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Patronizing, Pompous and Condescending MLA


He has some nerve to state that funds may not be available.
As though Eric Foster's bosses in Victoria haven't pissed away enough!

We residents are presumably to show some semblance of restraint and not expect our failed water referendum's projects to be funded by Victoria?

How about failed water referenda in both Kamloops and Revelstoke?
They subsequently each received a water treatment plant, compliments of Victoria, thank you very much when residents said "no".

You think we've forgotten all the folks lined up at the public trough?  Huge salaries for even deputy ministers and government executives, and BC Hydro, ICBC and their administrations, to name but a few.  Top executives at BC Investment Management Corp got a 310 per cent wage increase, the B.C. Ferries CEO makes more than top three Washington State ferries executives...on and on it goes.

The Morning Star reported MLA Foster as saying: "A vote 'yes' or 'no' doesn't make a difference about getting the government involved...that's not what would drive it.  Funding is allocated on the merit of an application and if there is funding available."

Drive it?
How dare you even mention the word "merit".
Didn't Interior Health convince their government brothers that "the safety of residents' drinking water" is considered meritous?

Your attitude, Eric Foster, is patronizing, pompous and condescending.
And we don't like it.
Remember that some of us still recall a different Eric Foster 30 years ago...one who knew how to spell the word humility, the first bag you shed when you became MLA.

Instead of your frequent polishing of the door handles at the regional district, try spending an equal amount of time talking to residents--in coffee shops, in malls, at gas stations.  You will quickly learn what you need to learn.
Certainly more than you're learning from bureaucrats with the focus on collaborative efforts.
It's just more bureaucratic schmaltz.
Because you're listening to the wrong people, Eric Foster.

We North Okanagan residents will not be bullied by you or anyone else.   

Fiscal mismanagement in Victoria now fills volumes of media reports--indeed tomes--most notably since Christy Clark's rise to the helm of the B.C. Liberal party. 

What's most upsetting about having typed that last sentence is that I'm a B.C. Liberal.
Okay, former Socred.
Yup.
Since 2011 and 2012, though, I'm more inclined to hold my nose when considering the Liberals' management of this formerly fine province.

Step back from your preconceived notions, Eric Foster, learned from bureaucrats within the confines of the regional district boardroom.
That's far too safe because you end up hearing only what you want to hear.

Go talk to people...taxpayers and you'll get an eye-opener.
The problem started with one premise:  Former GVW Manager Al Cotsworth's admission on why Duteau Water Treatment Plant needed to be built:  "We need to be able to change sources (from Duteau to Kal Lake, and vice versa) during emergencies such as water main breaks or serious contamination".

Throw out that premise.
Start again.

Consider, yes consider, what Gyula Kiss has been saying all along, quoted in the newspaper today:  "...a solution where the Duteau source would provide untreated raw water to the agricultural community and create a supply of treated water to the 20 per cent of domestic customers currently supplied by the irrigation line."

Because 80 per cent of Duteau's chlorinated water is used for irrigation!

Coldstream Councillor Kiss is hoping his "scientific solution--without the crazy political interference"--will be the cream that rises to the top of the slurry.
And it should but it hasn't yet.
But this Master Water Plan will NOT be accepted by residents.

So the powers-that-be had better reconsider Kiss' idea.

We residents are all thinking the same thing:  Could not someone--anyone--have recommended that that 20 per cent of Duteau's customers, who need domestic water, have received a one-time government donation/grant of state of the art water treatment for their home.  Not unlike the government program that donated farmers water meters two years ago...when the rest of us had to pay for meters.

All others, latecomers (new owners from real estate sales, home renovators, etc.) to the chiefly Lavington/East Coldstream area, would be advised that the grant period had ended and that they were solely responsible for domestic water quality.

That would've been a hell of a lot cheaper than what GVW is proposing with the $70 million water plan.
Probably $50 million cheaper...

What'll it take to have common sense prevail? 
First, Eric Foster should get out and talk to the people who pay the bills, who pay his wages (and fund his pension).

"It may take more than civil disobedience and not paying Q1 water bills," offers Kia "to show our contempt for the way we residents are bullied by bureaucrats and politicians."

Yes it might.
But firstly remember that Interior Health works for us, the taxpayers.
Not the other way around.
Same with politicians, of all stripes...and pomposity.




 
BC Ferries CEO Mike Corrigan made more than the top three Washington State Ferries executives combined." - See more at: http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/2014/09/managers-justify-generous-treatment-of.html#sthash.93jrFwDq.dpuf
BC Ferries CEO Mike Corrigan made more than the top three Washington State Ferries executives combined." - See more at: http://northerninsights.blogspot.ca/2014/09/managers-justify-generous-treatment-of.html#sthash.93jrFwDq.dpuf

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Commercial Irrigation Rates Skyrocket 50 Per Cent


Yup.

"Six businesses, including golf courses and nurseries in Vernon and Coldstream, will see the rate for irrigation water climb 50 per cent," announces the Morning Star today.

"Let the valley revert to desert as people leave..."

Maybe they're hoping we six businesses have a short memory, but we've been through this before--first in 2005, and then here, and here (now that Coldstream Councillor Gyula Kiss seems to be in charge of everything to do with water...including "some benefits" that might accrue from transfer of the area's water licence from upland sources to Kal Lake!)

Some benefits.
Might accrue.

Isn't a water licence a public asset and any plans to transfer it, or change it, or abandon it, or trade it must come before the public for approval?
There is little transparency in local governments in the North Okanagan, as no-one has ever said publicly (out of camera) what these so-called benefits are...

With Councillor Kiss meeting privately with the water consultants, is there any wonder Greater Vernon Water Authority Manager, Al Cotsworth, is retiring at the end of March?  Probably has nothing to do now that Kiss has taken over.

Back to water rates.

Apart from the commercial rate hit, everyone else will see a 3 per cent increase in rates over 2012.  As the Morning Star states, "customers who rarely turn on the tap will start paying more for water."
Proof it was never about conservation (shades of B.C. Hydro!)

Lumby's water rates are increasing too...seems people are conserving so much water that there's not enough revenue to run the utility. 

"Why don't we just deactivate all the water lines," offers an acquaintance, "and let the valley revert to desert as people leave."

"Sounds like Sean Harvey is back," offers Kia.

(The six businesses are:  Highlands Golf, Hillview Golf, Art Knapp's Nursery, Swan Lake Nursery, Tekmar Industries, and Atlantis Water Slides).