Pulling together the annual City budget is one of the most complex duties that staff and council performs each year and one that I take very seriously. As a result, at the last council meeting on Feb. 4 – I voted against staff preparing the draft 2019 budget inclusive of an Infrastructure Levy that would be phased in over...

There has been much discussion in the community over the recently proposed 2019-2023 municipal budget and what I believe to be its overly ambitious 37-per-cent increase on residential taxation. My opposition to it has been well documented in the news pages and on social media over the last few weeks. Every year, during budget...

OPEN LETTER: The discriminatory, sexist comments about Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould being spread by government officials and staff are appalling and condemnable   Dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, We demand that you immediately and categorically publicly condemn the racist and sexist innuendo about Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould...

On February 5, a longer version of the following letter went to Castlegar Council, signed by 15 area residents. We are hoping that Council will deliberate on this before finalizing the budget in April. Please redouble efforts to make Castlegar’s public spaces cosmetic-pesticide free, by increasing the maintenance of our lawns...

I spent a week in late January travelling across the South Okanagan-West Kootenay, listening to mayors, regional officials, economic development officers and other concerned citizens.  It gave me an opportunity to find out what the top priorities are for communities as we start this New Year. This week one issue dominated the...

Internal documents released via Freedom of Information laws show that, while the B.C. government was publicly apologizing to the Fort Nelson First Nation for exempting natural gas plants from environmental assessments without consultation, the province quietly used a loophole to allow the exemptions to continue — a...

Last night was the first of three meetings intended to change the paradigm of how mayor, council and city staff present, not just the budget, but the budget process to the Castlegar public. I'll admit, when I first picked up the 19-page budget packet provided so attendees could follow along – page after page of lists, charts,...

Introduction: last year of our Second twenty-first-century Decade (!) Year-end and year-start reviews can be an occasion for melancholy or celebration, and yet I personally feel neither. Mostly I feel astounded to find myself 19 years into the twenty-first century, and the third millennium, when it seems not so long ago that the pregnant year […]

We’ve heard a lot in the news lately about the challenges facing the oil sector, but much less about the serious problems confronting another natural resource industry—forestry. Two years ago, the United States placed significant import tariffs on softwood lumber.  Those illegal tariffs are still in place, yet we hear almost...

In this coldest time of the year, we often think of the people in our area who are homeless.  Some have ended up on the streets and in rough camps because of mental health issues, addictions, or a combination of the two.  Some are children fleeing abusive parents or women fleeing abusive spouses; others have become disabled. ...