When Castlegar gave a variance to Castlegar Toyota for their digital billboard, neither City staff or council considered that there might be good reason for having a bylaw spelling out the limits for commercial signs. Instead, they happily approved what would have to be one of the ugliest signs in the Kootenays, with the promise from Toyota that it [...]
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The New York Times featured an article about the sleepy town of Bolinas, California, where development has been managed through a unique process… Marc Dwaileebe would like to build a house for his family on land he owns in this bucolic town just 20 miles north of San Francisco. But he cannot hook up to the [...]
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The City of Castlegar is in a tight position, perhaps that’s why they penned a pretty slick media release a week ago week encouraging residents to participate in a survey and inviting them to the two public input sessions being held on the budget and financial plan. The public has been eerily quite on the issue of [...]
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The Grade-A services we enjoy in Castlegar from the library, water, sewer, streets and sidewalks, right through to the snow clearing operation comes with a hefty price tag. There is an indication out there that we are about to find this out, either through reduced services or increased taxes, as council balances a shift of taxes away from the industrial tax base, predominantly funded by the Celgar pulp mill.
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We speak in very real terms about the state of infrastructure deficit we find ourselves in as a nation and as municipalities, and scratch our heads as we wonder how we are going to possibly find the money to complete all of the upgrades or renewal required. Charles Hughes Smith, the author of Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for [...]
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A recent BC court case confirmed my belief that inadequate design should not be managed with "cover your ass" signage. Some of the quotes below serve as an excellent case study for understanding the relationship between a municipal engineering design, the designer and the municipality regarding safety and risk management. The case, Lovely v Kamloops [...]
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How is it that reports like this are not splashed as headlines across the globe? The UK's Telegraph actually published this, (and just before Christmas! How dare they!)… In a sombre report on the outlook for next year, [Moody's,] the credit rating agency raised the prospect that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger [...]
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Over at the Castlegar Current, there is some venting over the unpaid property taxes owed the City by Mercer for the Celgar Pulp Mill site. Briefly, Celgar decided not to pay it’s property taxes and requisitions for other levels of government to the City of Castlegar by the deadline in August 2009. Now the battle is going to [...]
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