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NOVEMBER 24, 2016 | Volume 29 No. 142
WEATHER Showers High 6 C Low 3 C SUN PEAKS SNOW REPORT Opening day is Saturday, Nov. 26 with limited runs. Snow phone: 250-578-7232
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WITHOUT SERVICE CUTS, TAX HIKE LIKELY years ago. Increased hydro and natural-gas rates, and $1 million in debt payments for recent city works, will also increase this year’s tax hike. Mayor Peter Milobar said there may still be some room to lower the increase, as the city doesn’t yet know exactly how much money it will get from new growth or its 2016 surplus. Council also has yet to make decisions on its list of supplemental budget items, which include proposed projects such as a roof repair at Norbrock Stadium, a boiler replacement at the Brocklehurst outdoor pool, upgrades to the North Shore community policing station and lighting and bleacher upgrades at Sandman Centre required by the Western Hockey League.
ANDREA KLASSEN
STAFF REPORTER
andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
A tax increase of more than three per cent next year is looking likely unless council wants to cut services, said city CAO David Trawin. The city is heading into this year’s budget deliberations with a tax increase of about 3.25 per cent to cover cost increases from this year. In years past, the city’s early propertytax increase estimate has come down by several percentage points over the course of budget debates, but Trawin said this year staff have held the city’s operating budget nearly flat from 2016, with an increase in costs of 0.22 per cent over last year. Many of the costs are out of the city’s control.
Get ready to pay more for sewer service in 2017 Story, page A4 “If you want to lower the budget, in my opinion what you’re going to be doing now is you’ll have to look at service levels,” Trawin said. Finance director Kathy Humphrey said this year’s major costs include $565,000 for RCMP wage increases, which are negotiated without city input, $813,000 for firefighter pay, which the rest of the province negotiates based on wages set in the Lower Mainland, and $700,000 for CUPE and management wage increases, which were set out in contracts negotiated several
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This black Jeep found at a home in Dufferin is the focus of a police investigation into the hit-and-run death of teen Jennifer Gatey. KTW FILE PHOTO
Forensic tests completed POLICE AWAIT RESULTS ON JEEP IN FATAL HIT-AND-RUN PROBE TIM PETRUK STAFF REPORTER tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
Police have completed forensic testing of a Jeep seized earlier this month from the driveway of a Dufferin home in relation to the investigation of a hit-and-run crash that killed a 16-year-old girl. Jennifer Gatey died on Nov. 4 after being struck by a vehicle on Pacific Way, less than 100 feet from her family’s Aberdeen home. The South Kamloops secondary Grade 11 student was one day shy of her 17th birthday. Gatey’s father, Cameron, has told KTW his daughter was walking to catch a bus to the Tournament Capital Centre for an evening workout.
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Kamloops RCMP Cpl. Jodi Shelkie said investigators have completed their forensic analysis of the Jeep and are awaiting results. Shelkie said the Jeep, seized on Nov. 8, is the only vehicle police have tested. The dark-coloured twodoor Jeep seized appears similar to a vehicle captured on video surveillance at a home in the area of the crash at about the time Gatey was killed. Police have been in contact with the Jeep’s owner. According to Shelkie, there is no timeline as to when results of the testing will come back. “It’s wait-and-see because it’s totally up to the different places that we send it and how long they take,” she said. “We have no idea.”
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