WEDNESDAY
S I N C E
1 8 9 5
JUNE 20, 2012
Production company takes flight
Vol. 117, Issue 120
110
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Page 2
INCLUDING H.S.T.
PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF
ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALM SALMO
Expansion plans in the hands of landowners BY TIMOTHY SCHAFER Times Staff
GORD DEROSA PHOTO
The River Reconnect mural on the Trail Memorial Centre shines in the night thanks to the lights that were officially turned on on Friday
New lights brighten up river mural BY BREANNE MASSEY Times Staff
Light has been shed on Trail’s newest mural. A six-year effort culminated on Friday when new energyefficient lights were officially activated to illuminate the River Reconnect mural. Trail Councillor Gord DeRosa, of the River Reconnect Committee, spearheaded a campaign to have LED street lights installed on the retaining wall of the Trail Memorial Centre. “It’s new technology,� said Larry Abenante, Trail’s public works manager. “We’ve used it in other places, but in small doses. This will be one of our big ones and we’ll see how it goes. We are starting to use it on some of our exterior lighting projects because the
(lights) use a lot less energy and require a lot less maintenance.� The lighting component came from Defiant Energy Solutions, which provided the LED street lights free of charge. The plan could cut the use of power by 93 per cent because the light emitting diodes are 13 times cheaper than florescent lighting. “The biggest reason
GORD DEROSA PHOTO
Main partners in the project included Mike Martin, chairman of the Lower Columbia Community Development, Mary Anne Coules of B.C. Hydro, Blair Weston, of FortisBC, Audrey Repin of Columbia Power and City of Trail Mayor Dieter Bogs.
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that we contributed to this project is that Trail, and a lot of the surrounding businesses gave us a lot of support early on and we (saw) a chance to help out with this beautiful opportunity,� said Travis George, president of Defiant Energy Solutions, who was in Trail last week with the company’s operations manager Raymond Bauman “It was the right
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a maple leaf wing— representing the trans-boundary of the Columbia as two nations, one river. This and other details about the mural are explained in more detail on the sign located across the river at the boat launch road near Gyro Park, which offers a perfect view of the city’s largest painting by Nelson artists Tyler Toews and Steven Skolka. The Columbia Basin Trust’s Lower Columbia Community Development Team (LCCDT) contributed $10,000 for the River Reconnect Mural Lighting Project. In addition the LCCDT’s new chair Mike Martin and former chair Craig Adams accepted a $2,500 cheque from B.C. Hydro representative Mary Anne Coules.
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thing to do,� added George. The company’s generosity ousted some of the financial concerns that had previously plagued the city and the River Reconnect Committee took care of rest by fundraising the remainder of the money required to advance on this $25,000 project. “It took awhile for people to bite into the whole concept,� DeRosa explained. “They just thought it was a whole bunch of pretty pictures on a wall rather than pictures with a meaning and now they see the benefit. And what better theatre could we get than a wall this big facing this close to the Columbia River?� The 200-foot-wide painting on the Trail Memorial Centre offers symbolic images like a bald eagle with
The latest volley in the match for boundary expansion has landed the ball in the court of Columbia Gardens business owners and residents. Trail city council voted last week to move forward with the Boundary Extension Study, a report that explored the merit and method of the City of Trail extending its corporate boundary into the unincorporated rural area south of the city known as Columbia Gardens. Although council unanimously supported a recommendation to proceed with the proposed Area A-Columbia Gardens boundary extension, the people of the affected region now need to reply before the process of boundary extension can move to the provincial stage for ratification. The city has hotly pursued the issue of expansion since it first was examined back in 2004, and expansion remains an important issue for the city in light of the diversification the opportunity affords the city’s tax base, said Trail Mayor Dieter Bogs. “We feel it is absolutely essentially for the whole future of the Greater Trail area, not just the City of Trail, because we would have the capacity to bring in and diversify our tax base for the whole Greater Trail, in our opinion,� he said. The study on boundary extension was handed down to council June 11 by Urban Systems, the consultant charged with gathering all of the formal responses from over one dozen or so business owners in the area, as well as around eight residences. The 2012 study presented looked into the finance, governance and service delivery impacts associated with including portions of the area— that runs along the Columbia River from the city side of Beaver Creek all of the way to the U.S. border —into city limits. Prior to the study coming to council, the Columbia Gardens landowners were given a feedback form at a May 29 meeting with the city. To date, five responses have been received and all were positive, said Trail chief administrative officer David Perehudoff in his report to council. However, he cautioned the city not to move forward until feedback from a majority of the owners was received.
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