Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of February 28, 2025
WEB OF LIFE The natural world is connected in all sorts of ways P.6
ON BASE Registration for kids’ soccer and baseball getting closer P.8
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 9
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
BULLY FOR YOU Residents say FortisBC is playing hardball with gate P.3
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
PEACHLAND BUDGET RECEIVES BROAD SUPPORT AT OPEN HOUSE
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Staff photo
Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY
The week of February 14,
TOWN TREES Protecting urban forests for air,water, life, Judy Wyper says P.6
ON THE PITCH Old ball diamond becomes soccer, P.8 baseball field of dreams
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
RAISING FUNDS Peachland as councillor planning trip P.3 memorial for his father
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Love in Peachland VALENTINE’S DAY
they’ve how they met and how Three local couples share long run stayed together for the
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to talk alentine’s Day is a time Post about love. The Peachland sat down with three Peachland met, fell in love couples to ask how they offer on how to and what advice they decades. stay happily married for BYRD CHRIS AND GABRIELLE by Teresa Harris Triggiano the home of Hanging on the wall in is a gift from their Chris and Gabrielle Byrd visual story of two three daughters. It is a an extraordilives spent together spanning tiny black and white nary 65 years. On it are couple on their beaming a of s photograph multiple family wedding day as well as te their 60th photos created to commemora
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SEE LOVE PAGE 7
Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
local homes and businesses Advertise to the 3456+ and businesses. into their households receives the local community address in Peachland this area Every week, every mailinginformation they want to know about in news with all the current a part of it! be and your business can
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four years prior. wedding anniversary, 88- and 89-yearSitting across from the notice mannerisms old, one can’t help but of having spent demonstrating the familiarity smile while listening a lifetime together. They Occasionally, intently as the other speaks. nudges Chris Gabrielle laughs and playfully on that particuinsisting he “not elaborate how they met, they lar story”. When asked with Chris’s love of begins that story a share for his passion for acting. In fact, if it wasn’t Gabrielle. met have theatre, he may never Chris moved Having received a scholarship, to study drama at from Montreal to England of Music and Dramatic the London Academy Sutherland was in Art. (Remarkably, Donald
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axes. No one wants to pay them, but that’s how we in Canada fund our roads and schools and parks and hospitals and police. In this province, municipalities and regional districts have to pass an annual budget by May in order to levy property taxes on homeowners in July. And public feedback on the draft budget is, by law, part of the process. The District of Peachland mayor, council and staff hosted an open house on Peachland’s draft 2025 budget last Tuesday at the Peachland Community Centre. Generally speaking, a municipal budget contains three spending areas: operating, capital and utilities. The operating budget includes staff salaries and costs that are relatively fixed (cutting the grass in parks, gasoline for fleet vehicles). The capital budget is money for updating existing infrastructure (replacing the historic school house’s HVAC system, for example) and investing in new infrastructure (a new protective services building). The utilities budget in-
cludes water treatment and sanitation. The 2025 provisional budget proposes a tax increase of 6.65 per cent. That translates into an $111 increase in property taxes for an average assessed home in Peachland. The tax increase is necessary to fund ongoing operational expenses and services, and to contribute to reserves for future expenditures, according to the document. The document goes on to note that Peachland’s infrastructure is aging, and repairs and replacement will be required in the future. The provisional budget was drafted by staff and approved by Peachland council in December 2024. Nothing has changed since then in terms of council support, but how do residents feel about the proposed budget? The Peachland Post spoke to a number of attendees at the budget open house to get their thoughts on the amount of the tax increase and on the district’s stated budget priorities. Ray Nault is generally supportive of the proposed tax increase but has some concerns about one council spending priority in particular: the Okanagan Trail. “I think the budget is more than fair. I don’t see any real aberrations,” he said.
NEWSPAPER
2025
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