There is a product produced from sewage sludge (human waste) mixed with wood chips. This is done at a plant on Commonage Road in Vernon. It is sold as fertilizer by garden centres. Seventy per cent of sewage sludge comes from Kelowna. Tons of sludge is sitting in the open and moved around until the smell is gone.

This process is polluting a wide area with a bad odour. It has been going on for the last three years. After numerous complaints and meetings, Vernon council made a decision in the spring of 2009 to reduce the incoming amount of sewage by 40 per cent. This brought us some relief.

In the late summer of 2009, our mayor, Mr. Lippert, and some of the councillors, namely Ms. Baumbrough, Mrs. O'Keefe, Mr. Lee and Mr. Gilroy, voted for an expansion of this plant. Councillors Spiers and Nicol did the right thing and voted against it.

Why are our mayor and the four councillors not putting their support behind the taxpayers of Vernon who put them in office and also pay their wages?

Kelowna shelters its people from the bad smell by bringing the sludge to Vernon. As long as our elected officials let that happen, nothing will change.

How can anybody be so naive and enter into an arrangement where a city three times the population of Vernon can bring its sewage sludge here and pollute our good air?

When will Mayor Lippert and his team tell Kelowna to dispose of its sewage sludge in its own municipality? Only then will we have an improvement.

Does Vernon want to be on the map for having the biggest outhouse in the country? Some tourist attraction this will be.

Manfred Brenner

Downtown Vernon merchants will be asked to help resolve parking problems.

Council has decided to form an action team to look at parking issues downtown and those merchants who specifically addressed concerns to the city will be asked to participate.

“The people with the greatest vested interest in parking are the people who have written these letters,” said Coun. Patrick Nicol.

Among those that wrote to council was Tom Nolan, owner of Nolan’s Pharmasave.

“Rumour has it that both the former Bennett lot and the Coldstream Hotel lot are slated to be developed (ie. lost as a place for the downtown workforce to park),” said Nolan.

“Where are these 150 people going to park? In front of meters of course. Where will our customers park? Eventually in the north end of town is my guess.”

However, city officials insist that both properties, while currently used for parking, were purchased with development plans always in mind.

“They are likely to be redeveloped with high density uses,” said Kim Flick, manager of planning and building services.

The Downtown Vernon Association has also written council and is calling for a comprehensive parking strategy.

“Our history has been that the city has in the past advised that they were going to act upon issues surrounding parking and has not followed through,” said Ruth Hoyte, DVA president.

According to Flick, a parking strategy is a critical part of the land use process currently underway in the city centre.

Charging grads a fee for using Polson Park as a backdrop is getting a rough ride.

The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee tabled a proposed policy Thursday that would have covered parking in parks for special events. Schools would have been billed $315 each for parking control staff while graduates take part in an annual tradition of having their pictures taken in Polson Park.

“It’s just another way to extract some money,” said director Patrick Nicol.

“You should be able to take photos of your kids in the park. This (money) will just come out of the families.”

While staff stated parking controls are needed to ensure public safety, director Jim Garlick also opposed the plan.

“This is part of the community,” he said.

“If we have to start nickel and diming every one using a park, I’m not sure we’re providing a service.”

In a written report to the board, parks and recreation manager Al McNiven stated that because the internal roads and some green areas become clogged with vehicles, pedestrians are put at risk.

“As a result access routes for emergency vehicles are congested to the point where emergency vehicles would not be able to access the site,” he said.

Instead of proceeding with the policy, a decision was made to table the matter until a review of the parks and recreation service is completed. The review could lead to GVAC’s responsibility for some parks changing.

GVAC will also contact Greater Vernon’s secondary schools about parking concerns in Polson Park and see if options can be found, such as parking at nearby sites.

“It’s good to create some guidelines. It’s all about communications,” said director Paula Harned, who is concerned that any fees would negatively impact students and parents.

“We should try every effort first before we hire people to manage the issue.”

A failed candidate for mayor vows to keep watching activities at Vernon city hall.

Tony Stamboulieh, who placed fourth in the six-person race, says he will remain an active part of the Vernon Taxpayers Association.

“I will continue to do this,” he said of speaking out on issues of concern.

Stamboulieh received 787 votes compared to 2,728 for Wayne Lippert, 2,363 for Juliette Cunningham, 825 for Rick Thorburn, 538 for Steve Campbell and 148 for Floyd Edwards.

“The beauty of democracy is that those who have taken the trouble to vote get the government they deserve,” said Stamboulieh.

“Vernon certainly deserves Mayor Lippert and his team. And I wish them well. They will need all of their collective wisdom during these coming critical economic times.”

Stamboulieh doesn’t believe his showing in the election is a sign that the public doesn’t support the taxpayers association.

“They (residents) have always supported the issues and concerns through petitions massively,” he said.

“But perhaps local elections here and across the province indicated apathy. After the federal election, perhaps people are tired.”

It has been suggested by Stamboulieh and the association that city hall hasn’t been open and transparent but Lippert disagrees.

“The mayor’s office has been more accessible than in the past and we need to keep concentrating on it and letting people know what the city is doing,” he said

Lippert says there is a need to educate residents about how city hall operates and some of the provincial legislation it must follow.

“I want to make sure that people know that there are no secret meetings. All meetings are posted but there are in-camera meetings where there are issues that must be in-camera,” he said.

Under provincial law, the matters that are to be discussed in private or in-camera meetings are labour, legal and property.

A controversial fertilizer plant in the Commonage could see its activities drastically reduced.

Vernon council is directing itself and the City of Kelowna to reduce the amount of sewer sludge the Ogogrow biosolids facility processes to the level it was designed to handle for six months so issues of odour can be monitored.

“That facility has not been proven to be efficient and to operate without the odour,” said Coun. Barry Beardsell.

Reducing the level of product will only occur when a suitable site for any excess sewer sludge is found.

Staff had been recommending a $5.6 million expansion of the facility as a way of trying to improve operations and reduce the odour.

That argument didn’t go over well with some council members.

“We should make it function now before we expand it,” said Coun. Patrick Nicol.

Construction of the facility — which is owned by the cities of Vernon and Kelowna — began in 2004 and it became operational in 2006. It replaced facilities Kelowna had within its own community and Lake Country.

“There was no mention of the problems that occurred in Glenmore (Kelowna) and Lake Country,” said Beardsell of reports he has heard about odour complaints at those two sites.

“This council needs to send a strong message to the City of Kelowna.”

Thirty per cent of the volume at the Commonage plant comes from Vernon and the rest from Kelowna. Odour complaints have come largely from residents living along Kalamalka Lake.

“Quiet evenings on the deck have been cut short by the overwhelming noxious odour,” said resident David Facey.

“This plant has taken away our opportunity for social gatherings.”

There is also a concern that the odour could be causing health problems.

“Two residents have been diagnosed with severe respiratory issues,” said Facey.

Facey also suggests that the sludge could be contaminating the environment.

“It does not perform as promised,” he said of the facility.

Beyond the odour, Beardsell is upset with comments some of his colleagues are making about the plant.

“A lot of misinformation has been put out blaming the previous council,” he said.

During a recent all-candidates forum, Coun. Jack Gilroy stated that the operating agreement for the plant had been signed by the old council and not the present one.

But the former council only reached a memorandum of understanding with Kelowna and present council ratified the actual operating agreement for the facility.

“If I was perfect, I wouldn’t be a politician. I made a mistake,” said Gilroy.

While he apologizes for his comments, Gilroy says current council signed the agreement based on information provided by its predecessor.

“It came down as the greatest thing since sliced bread. It had all been worked out by them,” he said.
 

It's amazing how bureaucrats and politicians so readily think that the money and assets they administer are theirs, when that isn't even close to the truth.

A good example of this is the situation that has arisen over N'Kwala Park in the south BX.

The Vernon School District purchased that site in 1977 as a potential location for a school. As we all know, a school was never constructed there, but the Greater Vernon Services Committee has leased the land for the last 20 years for soccer fields, a playground and basketball court.

Now, the school district has launched a process to sell the property, which all Greater Vernon residents, and especially those in the adjacent MacDonald Road neighbourhood, have come to take for granted as open space.

It's now anticipated that GVSC will try and acquire the property so it can remain in public hands, and that's where the problem exists.

While the school district and GVSC are two unrelated agencies, they are both funded by the same source — you and me, the taxpayers. So a property that the public shelled out good cash for in 1977 is now going to be bought again by the same taxpayers.

There is also the reality that the school district has put very little cash into the property since it was acquired 31 years ago. Instead, GVSC has made a considerable investment through lease payments as well as developing and maintaining the sports facilities there.

And perhaps the most galling part is that the school district has been forced to sell the property so it can help subsidize the provincial government's rebuilding of Vernon Secondary School. Education is a provincial responsibility but the construction of schools is being downloaded on to the backs of local taxpayers.

Unfortunately, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Greater Vernon residents.

If GVSC purchases N'Kwala Park, our taxes go up. But if GVSC doesn't take control of the site, it will be placed on the open market for sale and green space could be replaced by a residential subdivision.

And this isn't the first time that the provincial government has made a buck off taxpayers by selling us something we already own.

Last year, residents at Kingfisher, at the north end of Mabel Lake, agreed to borrow $175,000 to purchase the vacant school site there from the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District so it could remain a community asset.

But local taxes had already been used to purchase the land in the 1950s for a school, and the Kingfisher Community Club had been maintaining the building since its closure in 2000.

It was a double-whammy for the folks at Kingfisher.

Perhaps I am too naive, and don't understand how the world works. Maybe I don't see the clear distinction between a provincially mandated school board and a parks function operated by a local regional district. It could be that such transactions are a normal course of business.

But then again, my confusion could also be a direct result of politicians and bureaucrats slurping up water at the same taxpayer-irrigated trough.

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