Message from the Mayor

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Posted: July 11, 2015

Message from the Mayor

By Mayor Ute Juras

Village of Canal Flats

Welcome to summer! I hope everyone is staying cool in this heat.

On of the major issues that arise in this weather is the constant threat of wildfires. Although we have none in our immediate area there are plenty of them around the East Kootenay. You can keep yourself informed by checking out the Southeast Fire Centre website at www.bcwildfire.ca and for evacuation alerts and orders you can go to the RDEK website at www.rdek.bc.ca.

Of course, if a fire starts up closer to the village I will send out regular bulletins via the Mayor’s Message and my Facebook page.

In the meantime, please be vigilant in trying to prevent fires. Be sure to obey the total fire ban, do not through lit cigarettes out of your car window or on the road, do not leave glass or plastic containers in the sun and if you do see a wildfire make sure you report it immediately by calling 1-800-663-5555 or *5555 on your cell.

In other news, for those of you who have not yet heard, the application by Benny Boyz to rezone a piece of property along Grainger Road to accommodate a RV Park has been withdrawn and the rezoning will not proceed. The applicant has the option to re-apply, in which case the process will start over again.

One message that kept repeating itself during the Benny Boyz application process was that nothing should change; everything should stay as it is.

If that means that we should stay a small village where everyone knows each other and looks out for each other, I hope that is what happens. However, I would like you to think about this; in order to survive and keep our village running without putting too much pressure on the taxpayers, change is unavoidable.

We need change. But change does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. If we are smart about it we can keep our small town atmosphere and still achieve economic growth. So I ask you to keep that in mind when we ask for your input in upcoming surveys, open houses, etc.

Remember, we are all in this together and council welcomes any ideas, thoughts and suggestions you may have to help make our decisions.

In the meantime, council is still working on our planning process, which will among other things look at the OCP, zoning bylaws, etc. We hope to see a lot of public engagement and participation during that process as well.

On a lighter note, what a great Canal Days we had! We had record turnout, record parade participation and record number of vendors. Everyone I talked to was having a great time. A HUGE THANK YOU to the Canal Days Organizing Committee for doing such an excellent job! I would also like to thank Mayor Lee Pratt of the City of Cranbrook for joining us and for being such a good sport by keeping our hockey jersey on for the entire time he was here. It must have been incredibly hot in there. J