Archives for December 1, 2020

Dennis (Denny) Rossland Kaulback

July 14, 1952 – November 27, 2020

On Friday, November 27, 2020, Mr. Dennis (Denny) Rossland Kaulback of Oliver passed away peacefully at home after a long fight with cancer at the age of 68 years.
He was predeceased by his father Al; mother Petie and sister Karen all of Vernon.
Denny will be fondly remembered by his loving wife Carolyne (Lyn); son Alexander and brother Grant (Zinny) of Hawaii.

He was a self-employed contractor in Revelstoke for 40 plus years and retired to Oliver in 2017 where he bought and renovated an older home as a retirement project.

Denny loved to travel, specifically to the far east, Cuba and Mexico. He loved to talk to and question anyone he met from a different country or lifestyle.

Denny was the Director of the Revelstoke Women’s Shelter for many years, a long-time member of the Revelstoke Theatre Company and a newcomer to the South Okanagan Amateur Players.

He was awarded numerous best director or best production theatre awards.
Denny enjoyed fishing, hiking, skiing, driving around in his ’62 convertible on sunny afternoons and wine making.

Donations are gratefully accepted for the BC Cancer Foundation, 150 – 686 West Broadway, Vancouver, BC V5Z 1G1 or at: https://bccancerfoundation.com/ways-donate/gift-memory

Condolences and tributes may be directed to the family by visiting

www.nunes-pottinger.com

The B.C. government is providing $1 million in emergency rescue support for rural and remote communities throughout the province.

The Office of the Fire Commissioner has partnered with the Fire Chiefs’ Association of BC (FCABC) to launch the Road Rescue Grant program. This one-time grant will allow organizations in B.C. to apply for up to $50,000 to fund equipment or train emergency responders in road rescue.

“British Columbia is fortunate to have a network of dedicated and skilled emergency personnel who support public safety by responding to incidents on our highways,” said Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. “Road rescue personnel answer the call for help in some of the most remote regions, going beyond the borders of their local government rescue areas to provide emergency support for accidents wherever they are needed.”

The grant program was established to support B.C. fire departments, fire brigades, fire societies, search and rescue groups, and First Nations communities registered with the road rescue program. The funding is provided by the Province and administered by the FCABC. The deadline for submitting a grant application to the FCABC is noon on Dec. 11, 2020.

“We’re proud to be able to work with the Fire Chiefs’ Association of BC and other groups to provide support,” said Jennifer Rice, Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness. “We are so lucky to have a dedicated network of emergency responders provincewide who help people when they’re in trouble on our roads and highways.”

Highway rescue services within local areas are funded through local taxes. The Province provides support to road rescue providers that are willing and able to respond outside their local government rescue service areas by offsetting response costs and providing WorkSafeBC coverage. This funding is intended to provide additional support for training and equipment purchases.

“Receiving additional funding from the Road Rescue Grant program will greatly support our small community here in the District of Mackenzie,” said Jamie Guise, fire chief. “We have seen increased costs over the past few years, due in part to higher call volumes and greater costs related to protecting our members from COVID-19. We thank the Province for this support, which will allow us to invest in road rescue extrication equipment to better support our first responders on the front lines.”

The Province continues to work with the FCABC on an enhanced governance framework to manage road rescue in British Columbia. The goal of this work is to find a path toward implementing a more functional funding, governance and operational model.

Al, thank you for the thoughtful letter. I’m a fan of both logic and economic development that helps communities, and your reasoning and logic make sense on both fronts to me. As Dave Drought mentions, I still am getting my feet under me (as in, I don’t have a work phone #, or staff, yet!). But this is certainly something that I’ll look forward to discussing further with you and with my new legislative colleagues. I’d like to see us move in many of the same directions you mention, and I just need to get up to speed on the landscape and some of the challenges with such proposals, and then I hope to be able to help move the system in the right direction. I myself have high expectations … I hope we can deliver on those!

Roly Russell, MLA – Boundary Similkameen

 

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Open letter to Roly Russell by Al Hudec

Congratulations on your appointment as Cabinet Secretary for Rural Development. This position gives you a great opportunity to eliminate regulatory barriers to rural economic development in your Boundry-Similkameen riding. In particular, I’d like you to draw your attention to one specific regulatory impediment that is inhibiting the growth of the Okanagan-Similkameen wine industry and the growth a rural communities in your riding.

Farm-based wineries are prohibited from establishing tasting rooms in our local towns and cities. This prohibition is imposed through agreements forced on land-based wineries by the Liquor Distribution Branch. In other near-by jurisdictions (such as Washington, Oregon, Napa and Sonoma) many small towns thrive on wine tourism. Tasting rooms are allowed to cluster in small rural communities, encouraging complementary businesses such as restaurants, tourist shops and arts and entertainment venues to do the same. This attracts tourists looking for a complete tourism experience that includes not only wine but also food, entertainment, shopping and accommodation.

Under current LDB  rules, land-based wineries are required to locate their tasting rooms on agricultural land. Wineries looking to provide customers with a complete tourist experience are building restaurants, guest houses, wedding venues and concert amphitheaters on their vineyard properties while nearby rural towns are starving for economic development opportunities. The law needs to to change to allow more balanced growth of wineries and associated business in our local towns and cities rather than forcing such development into the Agricultural Land Reserve.

At some point forcing development into the Agricultural Land Reserve begins to raise obvious concerns about the loss of cultivatable land, noise, high traffic density and the dangers of tourists consuming alcohol and driving on country roads.  Provincial laws distort sensible decision making by requiring tasting rooms to locate in vineyards. We need to boost economic development in our communities and take the pressure off agricultural lands.  

More generally, your government needs to do more to open up channels for the sale of BC wine. The BC wine industry continues to grow (a 22% increase in licensed wineries since 2015), but it is at a critical juncture. Although BC is producing super premium products that are receiving recognition around the world, the share of BC VQA wine in its own local consumer market is only 18%. Notably, Canada (BC included) is the only wine growing area in the world whose citizens do not drink predominantly their own domestic wines. Inter-provincial trade barriers prevent the direct shipment of BC wine to consumers in most other provinces and have stunted the development of a national market for BC wines.  

Current distribution channels for BC wines are inadequate. The BC Liquor Distribution Branch, which is the dominant player in liquor retailing, does a poor job of selling the wines of small artisan BC producers. Notwithstanding the 18% market share of BC VQA wines, the LDB devotes only 8% of its shelf space to BC wines and also pursues various abusive practices detrimental to the domestic industry. Most consumers around the world prefer to purchase their wine predominantly in grocery stores, but BC has imposed severe limits on wine sales in the grocery channel.

Many of the liquor regulatory changes on your government’s policy agenda are counterproductive to the objective of opening up distribution channels for small local wineries. Examples include extending the moratorium on the licensing of new private liquor stores, wholesale pricing for restaurants and permitting private liquor stores to sell to restaurants, limitations on wine in grocery, potential limits on the sale of winery with restaurant takeout and delivery; and prohibitions on delivery of wine directly to consumers from centralized storage facilities in the Lower Mainland. 

Your government’s liquor policy agenda is directed mostly at helping private liquor stores, restaurants and pubs; with the side effect of negatively impacting sales channels for BC wineries. More has to be done to offset these negative impacts by implementing policies advantageous to BC liquor manufacturers.

Policy-making by the LDB should be eliminated. Hopefully the recent government reorganization which puts the LDB under the authority of the Finance Ministry and the LCRB under the Solicitor-General reflects a realization by your government that the principal purpose of the LDB is revenue generation for the provincial treasury and that liquor regulation should be centralized in the LCRB.      

BC wine is a premium value-added agricultural product in the Province and the key economic driver of our local tourist industry.  We need to regulate it sensibly in a manner that ensures its success. This includes abolishing the LDB rule prohibiting farm-based wineries from clustering their tasting rooms in local communities.

Albert Hudec – Partner at Farris Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP
Providing legal advice to the British Columbia wine industry

The Province of B.C. is launching the CleanBC Organic Infrastructure and Collection Program, which will provide up to $25.7 million, over three years, to communities to develop or expand opportunities to divert organic waste from landfills.

The program is meant to enable communities throughout British Columbia to be able to build organic waste processing facilities and implement organic curbside pickup programs, decreasing the amount of organic material going into landfills, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and creating jobs.

The program offers two streams of funding: organic waste processing infrastructure projects and residential curbside collection programs. Eligible applicants include Indigenous governing bodies, regional districts, and municipalities. Funding will be provided through cost-sharing arrangements, with the province providing up to two-thirds of eligible project costs and applicants contributing the remainder.

“Diversion of organics reduces GHG emissions and extends the lifespan of landfills,” said Maja Tait, mayor of the District of Sooke and president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities. “This is a substantial investment by the Province that will increase the volume of organics diverted, producing more high-value compost.”

The new CleanBC Organic Infrastructure and Collection Program follows the successful implementation of a provincial-federal funding partnership, the Organics Infrastructure Program, which recently provided funding for 13 compost facility projects throughout the province. It is anticipated the program will fund up to 18 organics infrastructure projects and provide up to 86,000 residential units with curbside collection programs.

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With new grant money available projects in Summerland and Penticton are projected to be completed within five years.

The plant at Oliver appears to be first in line to service Osoyoos, Oliver, Rural areas and OIB land

The programme will have front door service pickup for compost material.

Source graphic: RDOS

Programme to be discussed Thursday at next District Board meeting.

“This is yet another classic example of a Prolific Offender creating criminal havoc in our community. Prolific Offenders do not care who they steal from, nor do they care about the emotional and financial toll their criminal behaviour has on the countless victims in our community,” states Supt. Brian Hunter. “In this case, a bicycle worth $10,000. The Penticton RCMP will continue to target these Prolific Offenders and work with our Justice System in an effort to hold them accountable for their relentless criminal activity.”

On November 30th, 2020, at 10:00 a.m., front-line officers were alerted to two men spray painting bicycles in behind a building on Yorkton Ave, in Penticton, BC.

The first officer arrived to find a man riding on a mountain bike, which the officer recognized as having been recently stolen. The officer told the man he was being detained, at which time, he immediately dropped the bike and fled on foot. In an effort to locate the suspect, multiple front-line officers attended the scene, along with Police Dog Services.

After searching the immediate area, the suspect was located hiding in thick brush, where he continued to run until the police dog assisted in taking him into custody.

The suspect, a 33-year old Penticton resident, remains in police custody, and faces a multitude of charges. He was also found to have several outstanding warrants