Do you think I would make a good redhead? Serving the Creston Valley since 1948
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Volume 65, No.14
$1.10 (includes GST)
Policing costs will raise taxes by nearly six per cent
Food action coalition debates lot size proposal for Lister BY LORNE ECKERSLEY Advance Staff
TODAY'S WEATHER
A debate about reducing the required lot sizes in Lister from 20 to 10 acres isn’t going to go away quietly, if sentiments expressed at Monday night’s Creston Valley Food Action Coalition meeting are any indication. Following remarks by Lister farmers Randy Meyer and Wayne Harris, not a word was spoken in support for the Regional District of Central Kootenay Area B’s advisory planning commission’s proposed changes to the official community plan (OCP). Meyer, a member of the APC, was one of nearly 40 in attendance. Last week, another APC member, Pat Martin, went public with her own concerns about the proposal’s potential impact on farming. Harris, whose family runs Kootenay Meadows Farm, an organic operation whose products include cheese and milk, told the meeting that the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR), created in 1973, made B.C. “probably the first place in the world to preserve agricultural land in legislation.” Only two to four per cent of the province consists of arable land, he said, the most productive of which is in the Fraser, Okanagan and Creston valleys. Large tracts in the Cariboo and Peace River regions are generally suitable only as ranchlands. See LOT, page 5
This week's weather artist:
Emmalynn Boehmer, Erickson Elementary School
BY LORNE ECKERSLEY Advance Staff
Footlighters Theatre Society
THE SUN’LL COME OUT — Colin Hardwick is Oliver Warbucks
and Katie Foy is Annie in the Footlighters Theatre Society-Adam Robertson Elementary School co-production of the 1977 Broadway musical, Annie, which runs next week at the Prince Charles Theatre. (Story on page 22.)
CVH gets new palliative care room Page 3
Creston property owners can expect a 5.8 per cent tax increase this year, all of it going into the town’s share of policing costs. “The rest of the budget remains virtually unchanged from last year’s total, with cuts having been made to reflect increases resulting from inflation,” Steffan Klassen, director of finance and corporate services, told Creston town council at the March 26 regular meeting. Klassen said that most of the spending reductions came from the fire department’s budget as staff worked to keep a tight rein on expenditures. He painted a cautious picture of the local economy, in which the commercial sector is struggling and only two new houses were built last year. “The new hotel will hopefully continue to stimulate economic revitalization as the rest of the Kootenays recognizes that Creston is an ideal central location for meetings and conferences,” he said. A slow real estate market is a concern, though the health care sector, local mills and Columbia Brewery have remained quite stable. Tourism, he noted, has increased in each of the last two years. See TAXES, page 5
• Mark Koenig offering concert /11 • Concert society wrapping up season /13 FIND US ONLINE AT
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