EAGLE VALLEY
NEWS
Octogenarians frustrated with DriveABLE test Page 3
Eagles advance after sweeping Storm in seven Page 8
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Vol. 53 No. 12 Sicamous, B.C., • 1.25 (HST included) • www.eaglevalleynews.com
Play time: Angeline Patrick and Bridget Wiebe climb, crawl and slide about on a jungle gym at the Parents and Tots program, held Fridays from 10 to noon at the Lady of Fatima Church. Parents and Tots is a free drop-in program for children ages 0 to 5. Parents are encouraged to bring a snack. Photo by Lachlan Labere
District doles out more than $65,000 in community grants Budget teaser: Events co-ordinator and iPads for council among pre-approved budget items. By Lachlan Labere Eagle Valley News
Community service grants, funding for civic centre improvements and iPads for councillors are among early budget items pre-approved by Sicamous council. While the District of Sicamous’ 2012 budget remains a work in progress, a number of budget items were required to come before council last week so that related works and programs could be started as soon as possible. Regarding grants, the district will be providing community service groups with every cent they asked for. This includes two requests of $15,000, one from the Eagle Valley Snowmobile Grooming So-
er ciety, and the other will include the adus from the Sicamous ditional grant fundm and District Museum ing. iand Historical SociThe district will oety (though the soget cracking on the We’ve taken the position that we d ciety is still required remaining works have to do things differently and he to clarify what the this year at the civtry and create some economic grant money will bee ic centre. This reactivity in the community. used for). quires $50,300 for Doug Ruttan lTotal grant dollandscaping, to be District interim administrator d lars being doled done by municipal nt out in 2012 amount staff, and $421,000 st to $65,788, almost in offsite works in$10,000 more than budgeted through the cluding sidewalk, curb and gutter, lighting, district’s formula for grant funding. Coun- some sewer work, etc. Two new signs will cil is currently looking at a tax increase also be going up for the building on Finof around 1.25 per cent for 2012, which layson and Main Street, highlighting the
services offered within, including the Sicamous branch of the Okanagan Regional Library and the new visitor centre. Council also approved $10,000 for additional work inside the civic centre. District interim administrator Doug Ruttan explained this will go towards a reconfiguration that will create two separate counters on the second floor, one for finance and one for development services, which the public would be able to access directly. To help catch up with administrative work, funds have been set aside for contracted services – $25,000 for 2012 and $5,000 for 2013. Another $48,830 is beSee High tech on page 2