GVW Looking for Support

...and they're even asking their long-time adversaries:  The Citizens for Change to the Master Water Plan.

Back to their request, copied here:

From: Donna Douglas <donna.douglas@rdno.ca>
Date: February 7, 2020 at 12:16:09 PM PST
Cc: Jennifer Miles <jennifer.miles@rdno.ca>

  Subject: RDNO - REQUEST - Letter of Support - Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant Filtration Grant

Hello,

The RDNO is applying for a $30 million grant to help fund the addition of filtration to the Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant which provides drinking water to 58,000 customers in the Greater Vernon Area. As a prominent community member, I am contacting you to ask for your support for this project in the form of a letter we can include with the grant application.

A letter of support from your organization will help emphasize the importance of this project to the community. The flooding we experienced in 2017, which resulted in a 10-day Boil Water Notice that cost our businesses, residents, and health care agencies over $2 million dollars, emphasized the urgent need for filtration to protect our drinking water supply.

If we are successful, this grant will significantly offset the cost of this project. Your letter of support is a key factor to our success. I have attached a template that you are welcome to copy onto your organizations letterhead or use as is. If it is easier for you to come in to the RDNO office to sign, please let me know and we will have a hardcopy ready for you at the front desk.

We would appreciate receiving your signed support letter emailed to jennifer.miles@rdno.ca by February 21, 2020, in order to incl

ude it with our grant application package.

Best regards,

Donna Douglas | Clerk, Utilities | Regional District of North Okanagan | 9848 Aberdeen Road, Coldstream, BC   V1B 2K9 

P 250.550.3682 | TF 1-855-650-3700 | F 250.550.3701 | E donna.douglas@rdno.ca | W www.rdno.ca

so...if no grants come through, we taxpayers are presumably going to have to pay.
Just like always.

But they want our support first.
Up front, with a letter.

They even suggest the following as the form the letter could take:
(here's RDNO/GWV's template):

February 7, 2020

                                                                                                                                                        

Dear Ms. Marcolin:

RE:      Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant - Letter of Support - Filtration Grant

This letter is intended to provide support to the Regional District of North Okanagan (RDNO) for the proposed drinking water treatment upgrade to filtration at the Greater Vernon Water (GVW) Mission Hill Water Treatment Plant. I believe that this project is the highest priority project for GVW to complete to safeguard the health of Greater Vernon customers and after the Boil Water Notice of 2017, affirm that this project should be constructed as soon as possible.

We appreciate the RDNO’s efforts to take advantage of grant funding for this project, to ease the financial burden on our community. I strongly recommend to all applicable federal and provincial funding authorities that this project be provided the funds to assist the citizens of the Greater Vernon region, who have already invested substantial funds to update the water system in the last 18 years.

Yours truly,

Signature		Date
Print Name		Organization

Thistles by the Thousands!

...and yet there's a Noxious Weeds Bylaw at both the City of Vernon and the Regional District.

Is it a case of Do as I say, not as I do?

Or is the City of Vernon and North Okanagan Regional District expecting area homeowners to go across their streets and spray thousands of Thistles with herbicides?

The first humongous invasion of Thistles, almost in full bloom, is on the steep slope on the South side of Hwy 6 (across from the Health Unit), between 15th Street (the 7/11) and about 500 metres past the Speed 80 KPH sign.

The second obvious invasion, albeit somewhat smaller, is further East on Hwy 6, on the right, just before the trees that abut the Search and Rescue Building beside the Regional District Building...at about the location of the "pond" (unaffectionately known to residents as Mosquito Heaven, or Haven).

Prevailing winds are westerly.
So, very soon, millions of thistle seeds will be airborne...heading into Coldstream and Lavington.

Instead of sitting at their desks writing law after bylaw, how about actually performing the duties you so succinctly state belong to homeowners...
especially since these lands are city/regional district lands.

Let's see the thinly-veiled bylaw threats (click text to enlarge)

from here:  http://www.rdno.ca/bylaws/2381_noxious_weeds_fees_charges1.pdf