SPORTS: Dragon boating for survivors
COMMUNITY: St. Anthony’s Garden Party
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2012
Utility billings change By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
PLEASANT Touch
Left to right, Retirement Housing Society board member Corrie Goold, resident Margaret Siemens, board president Arnold Amonson, back, and board member Noreen Scott. Myrna Himech and residents Pat Gagne, Bill Stad and Mary Axen, and board vice president and treasurer Harold Luddit.
Utility billings will change over the next year and a half to a system of quarterly payments only. Council plans to change utility billings to a quarterly system, effective Jan. 1, 2014, to simplify the system. The present system is a complicated mixture of both annual and quarterly payments, says Director of Finance Tandra Bamsey. “Most municipalities don’t have both annual and quarterly,” Bamsey said, “but we have some customers that are on annual for say garbage and sewer, and quarterly for water. And it is a very cumbersome system.” It’s especially complicated when property’s change hands, as people owe some on the annual system
“ “Most municipalities don’t have both annual and quarterly.”
- Tandra Bamsey
and some quarterly, Bamsey added. The current system has a early payment discount of four per cent, and seniors get an additional 20 per cent off for early payment, said Bamsey. Under the quarterly system these discounts would be removed, said Linda Poznikoff, Chief Administrative Officer, and it would save the district around $30,000 a year. See BILL on Page 2
Himech family donates landscaping to Pleasant Valley Village By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Seniors at Pleasant Valley Village enjoy a new sign and new cedar units with flowers around their back decks. Donated by Myrna Himech in memory of her late husband John Himech, who died Sept 2009, the cedar
units frame the cement pads at the back of the apartments providing some privacy from the busy 11th Street. “Mom and Dad had the vision that they wanted to provide some privacy to for these folks from this very busy road,” said Myrna’s daughter Janice Himech. “Every time they
“I love them. It makes it look so much better”
“ would ld d drive i b by, th they would see them sitting out on their little concrete pad and it looked so lonely and not very private.”
- Margaret Siemens Myrna and John had been planning to do something when John passed away, and Myrna wanted to carry on with the plans in his
name, said Janice. Tanya Margerm, owner of TM Designs, had been developing a landscape plan to enhance the appearance of the building, so Myrna and her family worked with Tanya to finalize the plans, said Janice. The plan included four cedar units, a sign and flowering
crab apple trees for the front, said Margerm. The cedar units have a small storage space for garden tools, and a long, flower-box frame outside their back doors, creating a bit of a deck. “I love them,” said Margaret Siemens, a resident at Pleasant Valley Village. “It makes it look so much
better. Before it was just such a plain wall.” We had hanging baskets before, said Mary Axen, but taking care of it gets harder to do the older you get. Nearly all members of Myrna’s family were involved in planning, designing and building the units and sign, said Janice. See HOMES on Page 2