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,...

By Sarah Cox for The Narwhal BC Hydro has gone to court to avoid revealing the names of public employees who decide which companies are awarded lucrative Site C project contracts during construction of the $10.7 billion hydro dam. B.C.’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) ordered BC Hydro to release the...

Castlegar mayor and council will be rolling out a new budget presentation paradigm in a series of three public meetings slated for next week and the week after. In recent years prior, the city has held most discussion and staff presentations in camera, with a public open house presenting the draft budget in its entirety. At...

By  Sarah Cox, from The Narwhal In an unprecedented move, the Dzawada’enuzw nation is claiming in court that farming Atlantic salmon — which often carry disease — in their traditional waters constitutes a violation of Aboriginal rights Willie Moon’s family used to catch hundreds of salmon a day ...

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. ...

If Castlegar city council is serious about transparency and better communications, I would suggest Job One for them should be to leave a pile of rubber bands on the media table before every meeting so we can ping any member of senior staff or council who forgets to use their microphone. While that is obviously a tongue-in-cheek...

New Democrat MLA Katrine Conroy is welcoming $252,267 in capital project funding to support five capital projects across Kootenay West. The W.E. Graham Community Service Society, Trail Association for Community Living, Rossland and District Search and Rescue Society, Castlegar Society for Search & Rescue, and Black Jack Cross Country Ski Club Society are five of […]

Local MLA Katrine Conroy is reminding everyone in the West Kootenays that the deadline to register and vote in the referendum on electoral reform is fast approaching. “People in the West Kootenays are excited for a new way of voting that works for all of us,” said Conroy. “With the end of this referendum period […]