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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
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Tax increases coming 2015 By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
SACRIFICES Remembered
Houston taxpayers will see increases in their utility bill and property tax in 2015. The two big factors impacting the District of Houston budget are the Houston Forest Products closure and the Water Treatment Plant. Mayor and council had their first budget meeting last Thursday, with the next two meetings scheduled Dec. 4 and Dec. 11 with the new mayor and council. The District will lose $480,000 in tax revenue due to the HFP closure, but Director of Finance William Wallace says the budget has already been reorganized to prepare for that revenue loss. “We got to the bottom of planning what needed to be done for local government
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
Martin Newgard, member of the Canadian Armed Forces, lays a weath at the Houston Secondary School Remembrance Day ceremony. Newgard graduated from HSS and joined the school Monday to remember the many people who have sacrificed so much and given their lives to earn the freedom that we enjoy.
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District budget impacted by HFP closure and water treatment plant.
operations, pretty much by the end of 2013. Then we spent all of 2014 actually doing it. Now that 2015 is going to arrive, we’ve done the major things that needed to be done,” he said. The District cut costs this year by not replacing retiring staff and reorganized their budget so they don’t need to make significant cuts to facilities and services. See TAXES on Page 3
Houston and Granisle RCMP detachments amalgamate By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Houston and Granisle RCMP detachments are formally amalgamating into one. This means the two officers who lived in Granisle on two-yearlong posts will no longer be specifically
assigned to Granisle, but will live anywhere in the detachment area and be posted for four years. Nine officers will be based in Houston to police the jurisdiction from Hungry Hill to Six Mile Hill, north to Old Fort and south to Huckleberry Mine. RCMP Sergeant
Nine officers posted four years to live anywhere in Detachment area.
Stephen Rose says the two detachments were informally amalgamated in 2008, operating
as one but existing on record as two distinct detachments. But now the
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RCMP is simplifying by formalizing the amalgamation. Other B.C. communities the size of Granisle don’t have their own detachments, and Granisle doesn’t have the workload for a full detachment, said Sgt. Rose. Since the informal amalgamation in
2008, no one has physically been on shift in Granisle. RCMP officers simply lived there and reported to the Houston detachment. When calls came from Granisle, the officers on shift in Houston responded, Sgt. Rose said. “The only time officers were in Granisle
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was if they were sleeping and off shift, otherwise when they started regular shift, they were in Houston.” Yet Sgt. Rose says that since 2008, there’s been “absolutely no change in crime rates up there… if anything numbers continue to decrease.” See RCMP on Page 2
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