July 2019
• The District of Hope began negotiating to assume 753 Waterworks, and the public showed up en masse to weigh in on the future of water management and remind council of the long process they have endured already.
The council voted to amalgamate the failed water system near Kawkawa Lake into the city’s water system, and set out to hire a consulting firm to create a report that would illustrate what that would look like and what it would cost. That process took several months, and a report was brought back to council near the end of the year.
• Cathy Speth earned her trustee role in a Fraser Cascade byelection to fill the seat left vacant by Tom Hendrickson’s death. She won the Boston Bar trustee role handily.
Speth has two years of experience in education, and was the chair of the Aboriginal Educational Council (an elected position). In a question and answer published in The Standard leading up to the byelection, she said she ran with the encouragement of trustee Ron Johnstone as well as her band chief.
Speth has lived in Spuzzum all of her life, with the exception of when she attended post-secondary for business management and three years of the Certified General Accounting program.
• In other school district news, the board approved a $10,000 pay raise for themselves. Many boards have done this over the past year, to bring their remuneration up to speed to account for growing costs, and changes in their taxation rates.
According to information from the Trustee Stipend Ad Hoc Committee, the last significant increase the school board has seen for trustee remuneration was in 1994, when the stipend increased from $5,000 to $10,000. Since then, the stipend has increased incrementally to its current amount of $11,523.
• Sunshine Valley’s junior firefighters made the front page in July.
READ MORE: Sunshine Valley teens burning with promise
Troy Adams and Landon Jackson have been both volunteering with the SVVFD since before they could legally drive. And while the 15- and 16-year-old both say they have aspirations of becoming career firefighters, it was community connection that initially drew them to the hall a year ago.
Revised and restarted last fall by chief Chris Terry, the Sunshine Valley Volunteer Fire Department’s juniors program was designed for teens between 15 and 18, and exposes them to the same level of training as adult members.
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