NEWS: Hockey Game SAR donation
COMMUNITY: Houston Figure Skating Carnival
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19, 2014
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NO. 12 $1.30 Inc. GST
Property taxes up 2.7 percent By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
SOUP Fest
Property taxes in Houston is raising an average of 2.7 percent in 2014. With the closure of Houston Forest Products starting in May, the District of Houston draft budget is making up for the loss of $525,000 in tax revenue in 2015, but doing it gradually 2014 to 2018. William Wallace, Director of Finance, said the District transition plan includes significant cost cutting by the District in 2014, and raising $100,000 more in property taxes every year for the next five years. With an average 2.7 percent increase across the board, residential tax increases will bring in $42,500 and heavy industry $42,250. The other increases cover the rest, including major utility companies with $7,250 and other businesses with
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
The annual GEMS SoupFest was a hit: Packed with over 400 people, the event raised $4,095 which the GEMS girls club will divide between GEMS Girls Club Africa and the GEMS Esther School in Zambia, Houston Love by the Bowl soup kitchen, the Houston Food Bank, the Houston Hospice Society and Rough Acres Bible Camp. Above are Abbi, Becky, Kailee and Jordyn serving soup to the hundreds of guests who filed past. See page 6 for more.
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Increases 2014 to 2018 to make up for $525,000 revenue loss from HFP.
$7,000. The District plans to increase taxes close to three percent each year for the next five years to bring their budget back into balance following the HFP closure, Wallace said. He says two bylaws factored into the draft budget and how tax increases were set. The first bylaw states that taxes on business and industry should show fairness and equity (Bylaw 1036, Sch. C Objective). See TAXES on Page 3
Sawmill dust still an issue for logging associations Two years after sawmill explosions in Burns Lake and Prince George, a second round of inspections by WorkSafeBC at 144 mills found 61 of them had unsafe accumulations of wood dust. The inspections were done between last November and the end of January, and 2007 FORD EXPEDITION
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stop work orders were issued at 13 plants where the dust hazard was deemed serious. 17 were issued warning letters and three were penalized. This recent inspection blitz was the second one WorkSafe has conducted. The first round of mill inspections for 2010 TOYOTA MATRIX AWD
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“Stop work orders were issued at 13 plants where the dust hazard was deemed serious.”
dust came shortly after the explosions at the Babine sawmill
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in Burns Lake and Lakeland Mills in Prince George. Four 2013 NISSAN ROGUE S AWD
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workers died in the blasts, and many were injured. In the 2012 investigations, WorkSafe found 20% of the 150 sawmills it inspected had dangerous dust levels. At that time, warnings and cleanup orders were issued Commenting on the recent inspections, 2006 TOYOTA RAV4 BASE
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Al Johnson, vice president of prevention services at WorkSafeBC said “We found dust accumulations in areas that were outside of the normal production areas. Overhead areas, secondary areas, behind electrical cabinets, etc. So, their programs were just not as robust or as
sufficient as we need them to be.” Canfor, Tolko, Weyerhaeuser and Western Forest Products were among the 11 companies ordered to shut down areas of their sawmills because of excessive wood dust accumulations considered a risk for fire or explosion. - Submitted
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