Drawing the Line: arbitrary green space or agricultural potential?
Brenda Trenholme contested Happy Valley's zoning at council two weeks ago, in particular the five acre limit on subdivision size. The limit is a means to fulfill the Official Community Plan (OCP) objective to preserve agriculturally viable land, but council granted Trenholme permission to proceed with the OCP amendment process,...
COMMENT: Too much Happy Valley farm … or too little imagination?
Recent comments by Coun. Cary Fisher and Coun. Jill Spearn—regarding Brenda Trenholme's appeal to subdivide her Happy Valley property—taste like a slice of logical swiss cheese on a slab of imagination tofu. And you'll need a pinch of salt for the cracker too. Sure, sure, everyone's in favour of local agriculture. Just not ...
City to sell a strip of Second Ave to avoid encroaching garage
Council has started the process to sell a strip of city boulevard to the owner of 1958 Second Ave after what some on council call a "mistake" that led to the recent construction of an encroaching garage. "Public representation" regarding this sale has been set for Sept. 4. Two years ago, homeowner Matthew Titheridge received...
Screaming into the wind or a cynical shift in the balance of power? Council debates the proposed federal riding changes
Rossland's council has passed a motion to send a letter and a representative to the Oct. 3 Provincial Commission hearing in Castlegar to express "discontent" and oppose the proposal for large changes to the BC Southern Interior riding. The new "South Okanagan-West Kootenay" riding would no longer include Nelson, Harrop-Proctor,...
BC teacher includes Boundary in protest marathon across the province
North Vancouver primary teacher Ian Cunliffe spent the past weekend running through the Boundary as part of his 22 Marathons Against Bill 22 campaign across B.C. He is running the width of the province over 22 days as a public protest against Bill 22, which was recently introduced in the provincial legislature in response to […]
Black bear statistics show crunch is yet to come
Statistics from the Report All Poachers and Polluters (RAPP) hotline suggest that the fall glut of bears is yet to come despite a recent lull in the Rossland-Trail area. The graphs below are assembled from BearAware's provincial facebook page and show 2011 (red) and 2012 (green) statistics for black bear sightings in various...
Digging into life
Sometimes, when I stand in front of others and relate my journey, I begin with my family and the communities I've lived in, and I recount a partial history of the jobs I've held. Sometimes I relive relationships I've had. Once in a long while I'll tell the story of the time I was buried alive up in Pass Creek in '98. Despite...
COMMENT: A potpourri of points-of-view at a liberally spiced political potluck
MP Alex Atamanenko and his wife Ann joined more than 20 Rosslanders for a potluck on Tuesday evening to discuss Canada under the current Conservative leadership and the strategies concerned Canadians can use to turn our nation in a different (i.e. better, brighter) direction. Andy Morel's house was abuzz with moose burgers,...
MP Alex Atamanenko slams the Conservative corporate agenda at Rossland potluck, encourages action
After a potluck dinner at Andy Morel's house in Rossland on Tuesday—and after the diners had each expressed their concerns about the current Conservative leadership in Ottawa and Canada's lurch to the right—MP Alex Atamanenko offered some of his observations and experiences. "Thanks for all the food!" Atamanenko began, before...
COMMENT: Dead bears, nature-illiterate moderns, and the knapweed bloom
Our report last week on “Li’l Cinnamon”—the black bear runt who’d learned to forage in human property and so was caught and killed by conservation officers—generated a lot of interesting discussion. Les Anderson’s comments struck a particularly harmonious chord for me: “Humans have no understanding of wild animals whatsoever,” he wrote, “so they turn to […]
