Victoria Vision

How did we end up with 13 municipalities anyway?

2012-01-30T13:29:00.000-08:00

Why do communities incorporate? Over the years there were different reasons of why, but the underlying interest always goes back to local people wanting some local control over their community. The first to incorporate was Victoria in 1862. This was first and only incorporation passed through the legislature of Vancouver Island. The legislature of BC before union with Vancouver Island in

Some movement on amalgamation

2012-01-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

This came out yesterday Media Advisory For Immediate release A Conversation about Amalgamation The Greater Victoria community are invited to attend and participate in a public meeting on local and regional governance. When: Tuesday February 7th, Where: S. J. Willis School, 923 Topaz Ave, Victoria BC Time: 7pm to 9pm Free entry Speakers will provide short presentations on the history of Greater

The local News Group newspapers

2012-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

In this region we have the Times-Colonist as a daily but we also have our community newspapers. All of our local newspapers are owned by the Black Press. We have: Saanich News Victoria News Goldstream Gazette Peninsula News Review Oak Bay News Sooke News Mirror Monday Magazine Just outside of the CRD we have the following Gulf Islands Driftwood Cowichan News Leader Pictorial Lake Cowichan

Today's storm

2012-01-22T14:32:00.000-08:00

We went out to storm watch for a bit. Max was excited at first to be going to the "beach" but when we got there, that was the end of his interest. The winds were gusting to over 100 kilometers per hour. Sheila got out to look at the parking lot at the Oak Bay Marina and was utterly soaked by a huge wave. The water in the parking lot was about 20 cm deep I would have more

Craigflower and Tillicum corner and recent changes

2012-01-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

There have been a couple of smaller developments near the corner of Tillicum and Craigflower. It strikes me that there is the potential for a village centre to come about in this area.The two newest developments are certainly a step up in quality for the area. The one is a four story condo development on Tillicum called Gorge Hill. Since my kids go to Esquimalt High and I do a lot of shopping

Snow Removal

2012-01-18T11:12:00.000-08:00

Given that we only have snow at most a couple of times a year and it is one of those budget items that can vary dramatically from year to year, would it not make some sense for all 13 municipalities to sit down and coordinate how the deal with the snow? I make note this very specifically because I live on the border of two municipalities but I see no coordination between Saanich and Victoria on

LRT Funding

2012-01-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

There is a process of public consultation around how the LRT might be funded. People need to think about this clearly and what this whole process means. What it clearly means: Building the LRT will not increase transit use enough to cover the increased costs of operating the system. There is something wrong if you increase your capacity but get no cost savings from it. Seeking to get more

Craigflower Bridge - June start date

2012-01-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

Not quite how the bridge will look The design has been chosen and it is a combination of some of the stuff in the picture and the 5 span curved bridge - the curve allowing a large platform for the public on the eastern side. The picture comes from Herold Engineering of Nanaimo via the Goldstream Gazzette. View Royal approved the design, Saanich gives their nod on January 23rd. The Saanich

City of Victoria Jan 19th Council Meeting

2012-01-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

The agenda is out for the next City of Victoria council meeting. Interesting issues I see coming up: 712 Queens Avenue - transition of that Travellers Inn from a hotel into a place with 36 residential units, council needs to approve the reduction in the required number of parking spaces from 47 to 20 - staff is recommending approval. 858 Yates Street - Sugar Nightclub. Because the nightclub

How fast news came in 1862 and how it changed by 1866

2012-01-16T10:52:00.000-08:00

A major event for anyone in the British Empire in 1862 was the death of the Prince Consort, Albert. Queen Victoria's husband died on December 14th 1861 and the news arrived in Victoria on January 13th 1862. One month for major news to come from London to Victoria. Most news from elsewhere actually took much longer. The British Colonist's regular letter from a London correspondent could be

Sandown Racetrack Site

2012-01-12T12:52:00.000-08:00

North Saanich council met and considered new information from the staff. I had commented on the project earlier about my concerns of too much risk being transferred to North Saanich and this risk should remain with the current landowner. I am now looking at the report tabled at the January 9th the Committee of the Whole meeting. The report estimates the cost to North Saanich to meet the costs

Assessments

2012-01-10T15:32:00.000-08:00

I am once again offering my services for anyone interested in trying to understand their property assessment. I can give you advice on if your valuation is reasonable and if it is not, what you need to do successfully appeal your assessment. My experience comes from sitting on the Property Assessment Review Panel for Lillooet and Victoria in past years. It also comes from years of

Just some weather thoughts, mainly how to plan when to plant my garden

2012-01-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

I love the UVic weather network. In my neighbourhood I have six and half years of data now and I can see how much it differs from the Environment Canada data for Victoria. There are many micro-climates in the region here and if you were to crunch the numbers for your neighbourhood you might find it is different. In my neighbourhood I get about 67 centimeters of precipitation a year, this is

150 years ago all of Colwood was for rent

2012-01-05T17:55:00.000-08:00

I was reading the British Colonist for January 6th 1862 and saw an ad on the front page offering the Colwood farm for rent. The Colwood farm was a 600 to 620 acre property running from Esquimalt Harbour to Langford Lake. It was created in 1851 by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of the HBC. The farm was managed by Captain Edward Langford who named if after his home in

Uptown in the January Rain

2012-01-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Do you want to sit on a wet bench? I have wondered about the idea of Uptown being built as an open plaza type of mall. This is not a climate that allows you to be outside year round. We have months of cool damp weather. There is a reason shopping centres that were open in the past closed themselves into a more traditional mall. The rain means that all the benches are damp, you have to

City of Victoria looking for a consultant to review their Revenue and Tax Policy Review and Permissive Property Tax Exemption Policy

2011-12-31T16:42:00.000-08:00

The City of Victoria is looking to engage a consultant in January to have a draft Revenue and Tax Policy Review and Permissive Property Tax Exemption Policy review report ready by February 28th and a final report by March 6th. The closing for the RFP is January 9th. Here is the text of the RFP _________________________________________ THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF VICTORIA REQUEST FOR

2011-12-26T14:58:00.000-08:00

Something has to be done about these ships. It seems Jean Crowder, MP for Nanaimo Cowichan is making an issue of this. You can search youtube for derelict boats in BC and you will find a long list of videos. We have them from the size of a rowboat all the way to one time freighters or even BC Ferries. I wrote about this in July, very little has happened since. I posted a number of

Northern Junk Proposal

2011-12-20T17:28:00.000-08:00

I was disappointed to hear the City of Victoria Council turned down the latest version of the Northern Junk Complex proposed by Reliance Holdings of Vancouver. The two small buildings have been derelict on the site for many years. The site itself is currently set up so as to be functionally useless to anyone. The location is bisected by about 90 meters of Wharf Street. This means there is

1999 Esquimalt Election Results

2011-12-19T14:32:00.000-08:00

MAYOR Ray Rice 1617 Wayne Hopkins 1513 6 COUNCILLORS Maurine Karagianis 1836 Don Linge 1777 Lynda Hundleby 1609 Connie McCann 1580 Jim King 1545 Basil Boulton 1532 John Roe 1330 Pat McAdams 1040 Rod Lavergne 937 Paul Gilbert 723 Ryan Marshall 714 Christian Hauer 450 Joe Richards 362

2002 Oak Bay Election

2011-12-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

2002 Oak Bay Election Results For The Office of Mayor Christopher Causton was acclaimed For the Office of Councillor Frank Carson 2761 Nils Jensen 2512 John Herbert 2471 Caroline Macey-Brown 2237 Allan Cassidy 2211 Russell Irvine 2020 Cheryle Scott 1863 Christin Geall 1862 Pam Copley 1858 Mike Baskerville-Bridges 813 Jim Geiwitz 751 Alain Horchower 341 Voter Turnout 35.26%

1999 Colwood Election Results

2011-12-19T14:24:00.000-08:00

ELECTED IN THE CITY OF COLWOOD MAYOR Beth Gibson - 1432 Buddy Devito - 851 John Bergbusch 658 6 COUNCILLORS Jody Twa 1915 Hugh Bryce 1513 Jason Nault 1503 Gordie Logan 1453 Ernie Robertson 1426 Scotty Davidson 1038 Dennis Breckon 980 Mather Hewison 976 Jim Hutton 930 John Hoogendoorn 747 Wayne Edison 725 Lance Olmstead 713

New Group Advocating Saving the E&N

2011-12-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

The E&N Railway Action Group announced their existence today. Jack Peake and Jim Sturgill are concerned about how the Island Corridor Foundation is looking after the rail line. It has been more than five years now that the ICF has owned the railway. I have been wondering for some time what the plan is for the rail line and what the ICF is actually doing. I know they ask for over $100

City of Victoria Special Council Meeting Today

2011-12-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

At a special council meeting today the City of Victoria council raised utility rates for Garbage and Recycling (3.9%) Sewers (10%) Water (9%) All of these are well above the rate of inflation. This was done without any notice to the public that it was coming. There was no discussion that I can see by the previous council that they intended to raise the rates this much. The City of Victoria

The Sandown Proposal - too much risk is transferred to the local government

2011-12-13T14:37:00.000-08:00

I have been meaning to look more closely at this proposal for sometime and it is only the motion yesterday that got me to look closer at it. The proposal is for the owner to remove 12 acres from the ALR and give the remaining 83 acres to the municipality with it to be agricultural land into perpetuity. The existing eight lots would be consolidated into the two above lots. There is nothing to

Traffic in this region

2011-12-12T16:01:00.000-08:00

In general we do not have major traffic issues in this region, the Colwood Crawl sucks, but it is nothing compared to a dozen or more daily traffic snarls in the Lower Mainland. Though actions by local governments are hardly doing much to improve the situation. I am concerned how many of the core arterial roads in this region are only a single lane in either direction. I do not think that