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Rossland News Thursday, May 17, 2012
News
Columbia Avenue construction starts week two This is the second installment of a weekly update column courtesy of Coun. Jody Blomme, a member of the city’s Columbia Task Force. Construction has started with a bang as Copcan crews jump right in to milling out the concrete of Columbia Avenue. The grinding on the north side of Columbia is complete as of Monday, and the dig starting today (May 15) at St. Paul and Columbia will be a major part of the project: due to the depth of the sewer a very large hole is required to install a new manhole. This should take four days, and there will be no traffic up or down St. Paul for the four days. The sidewalk cutting along the white line will continue, and will occur outside of business hours whenever possible. Signs directing people to alternative parking will be up shortly. The parking will be restored on the north side of Columbia from Queen to Washington today. The parking lot behind Rossland Pro Hardware should be completed Thursday. The upper end of Queen is now available for angle parking. The City of Rossland is currently making arrangements to increase the parking available in Sourdough Alley. Renee Clark of the Rossland Chamber of Commerce has had large banners made up, advertising that Rossland remains “open for business” during the construction. She will order a total of nine banners to post on fencing along the work fence. Please note that the water used to help in dust control is not taken from the city’s drinking water supply. Dave Swift of ISL Engineering will continue meeting with businesses to keep them fully informed. His phone number is 250-512-1641. For any questions or concerns, please email the Columbia Project Communications Task Force at columbiaproject@rossland.ca
Copcan crews work to mill the concrete, which will then be recycled for new use. Rossland is now in week two of the Columbia-Washington infrastructure project, which the city estimates will cost $4.7 million. Arne Petryshen photo
Council impressed by survey
Neighbourhood of Learning survey concise and detailed ARNE PETRYSHEN Rossland News Editor
The Neighbourhood of Learning completed a survey on the topic of Rossland schools and received back over 500 responses, which the city discussed at last week’s city council meeting. Council members were impressed by the survey. Coun. Jill Spearn said the survey was done professionally by Jennifer Ellis, NOL co-ordinator. “It really did prove some things,” Spearn said. “Rosslanders are feeling very strongly at this time.” Spearn alluded to an earlier survey which found results consistent with this one. “That 85 per cent of Rosslanders want k-12 in Rossland,” she went on. “If you read the chart it went down from there. Our next best scenario would be k-10 or k-9, and then K-7 at MacLean.” She said that the response from the 518 people that responded was consistent as well: That Rossland feels strongly that for the sustainability of our community it needs K-12, though she said there were
some who weren’t in favour of that. Spearn also applauded the support from other organizations in the community. “The chamber of commerce clearly came out with a very strong stance in their strategic plan to support k-12 in Rossland,” she said. “That’s another really interesting aspect of the survey that we need to note: The impact of closing the school economically, how having the kids in our community is nothing but positive for our community, for our businesses, for the kids themselves, for all sorts of healthy reasons.” Spearn said the school budget that just recently was passed by the school district, was helped along by the fact that the board separated the budget from school closures. “It says in (the Trail Times) how quietly it went through, while the reason it went so quietly, as you might have noticed, is that they separated the school closures and the facilities part of the budget right out of the motion, so the budget’s gone through with all of the cost savings that the school boards come up with $1.4 million,” she explained. “But the actual closure of schools including our schools in
Rossland is a separate motion still to be debated, and they’re not going to make the decision, or they don’t have to make a decision according to the way the procedures are going.” That process won’t be until some time in December. The future of what education will look like is still not known in Rossland, but Spearn said that’s not such a bad thing, as it gives the community another year to plan. “We have more time to plan for that. More time for reins and we have more time to prepare kids and families and teachers and everybody who’s involved.” As well as businesses. Spearn thanked the chamber for making it a priority in their plan, since it echoes the city’s own priorities for the school and the community. Coun. Kathy Wallace weighed in. “I just want to send out compliments to all the individuals involved with the NOL,” Wallace said. “I think you’re doing excellent work. I read through the presentation that was made to the board.” Wallace called the presentation practical, and created with a common sense approach with good numbers to back it.
City looks at crime rates continued from P. 1 -tion and is there anything we can do with that information to spread the word?” CAO Victor Kumar responded that only issues that have gone through the courts are public information. “If it’s not then it’s probably not released from the RCMP,” Kumar said. “So apart from researching every individual, there’s no way of just finding out,” Blomme said. Kumar said that Staff Sgt. Hawton can probably give council a more detailed analysis, but it would have to be a meeting closed to the public. Blomme said that it may be interesting to find out that information. She said that the situation could be open for the city to have a bit of responsibility on the crime front. “We could take responsibility of something if we really fully understood the situation,” Blomme said. “Whether it’s awareness, a few lines in the newsletter even, if there is some sort of awareness we should be spreading through council.” Mayor Greg Granstrom said that they would “shoot for next council” to have the meeting.