As promised, on Oct. 28 I presented a Grant-in-Aid to Upper Clearwater Farmer’s Institute in the amount of $2,000. The funds will be applied towards appliances for the coffee room portion of the hall. Appliances and cabinets have been ordered and will be installed in the very near future.
Thanks to a donation by the Peltons, birch flooring is now installed and finishing work on this is planned to start right away.
Vavenby cellphone service
Work is progressing on this project. When you look up the hill from Vavenby you can now see the installed tower at the Vavenby TV Rebroadcast site. Highland Power will install a new power feed to the site, as the existing source is inadequate to meet the needs of Telus.
The latest information that I have still has the site scheduled to be operational by the end of December.
Upper Clearwater cellphone service
On Nov. 10 I will present a petition to the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board of directors from the residents of Upper Clearwater and request their support in securing a cellular station in Upper Clearwater as part of the new infrastructure agreement between the Province and Telus.
The amount of tourist traffic in the area will be identified as one of the business case components in support of this request. Thanks go to Barb Pelton for coordinating the petition. Community driven support really helps with these applications!
Birch Island postal addressing
When Canada Post advised Clearwater of upcoming changes to mail boxes and addressing I inquired to see if this would include parts of the electoral area and was told that it did not.
Much to my dismay I was recently informed that Canada Post has removed the identity of the community of Birch Island from its database!
Maintaining this identity is very important to rural residents and this action without consultation sets a precedent that has the potential to affect all of rural B.C. in a negative way. Without this identity it makes it much more difficult to successfully obtain grants and programs for an area.
I will be requesting the TNRD board support my efforts in returning Birch Island’s identity.
– Tim Pennell
