Saanich expanded its fire dispatch service into the West Shore this week, sparking once again talks of a unified communications system for Greater Victoria.

The city's fire department will soon take calls from residents in eight of 13 municipalities in the Capital Regional District after picking up a five-year joint contract from Colwood and View Royal.

Fire chiefs in both communities were frustrated with the service provided by the Langford fire department, citing long histories of dissatisfaction in reports to their respective councils.

Langford provides dispatch services on behalf of the CRD for 18 fire departments in the West Shore, on the west coast of Vancouver Island and on the Gulf Islands. That number will drop to 16 when Colwood and View Royal move to Saanich's service, likely in May.

Colwood will pay $76,332 for dispatch services from Saanich, compared with $63,063 paid in 2011 to Langford. View Royal will see its annual fee increase from $36,940 paid in 2011 to $44,942.

The additional costs are appropriate for the improved level of service, View Royal fire chief Paul Hurst said.

Recent upgrades to Saanich's public safety building have given it bragging rights for having the best dispatch facility in the region, according to a recent CRD report.

Saanich built a $600,000, "purpose-built" communications centre in 2008, which should withstand a major earthquake and is backed up by the emergency communications system, E-Comm, on the Lower Mainland, Saanich chief Mike Burgess said.

The fire trucks are also equipped with mobile work stations, which provide en route firefighters with important details about a building, including its height and its proximity to a fire hydrant. Dispatchers can always see where the fire trucks are thanks to the GPS system.

A review of fire dispatch services completed for the CRD in April recommended reducing the region's three dispatch centres — Victoria, Saanich and Langford — to "two or possibly a single provider."

The report said the three centres currently do not have the ability to share their services should one fail.

They "operate using different technologies and, at the present time, lack an integrated fail-over or disaster-recovery model for all centres within the region," the report states.

An assessment report presented to Victoria in October said the Victoria Fire Department's main hall on Yates Street, where the dispatch centre is located, could crumble in the event of a major earthquake.

Burgess said "it just makes good sense" for all departments in the region to be using the same dispatch technology.

"It's a cost-effective model for departments who want current, state-of-the-art technology for affordable prices," Burgess said.

Saanich Mayor Frank Leonard encouraged his neighbouring communities to explore his city's system. He called his invitation a "soft sell," recognizing people's sensitivities about regionalization.

Langford is in the middle of reviewing its dispatch service through a sub-committee made up of fire chiefs within its network.

Langford fire chief Bob Beckett wants to create a parallel to the system in Saanich, which, he said, would give the region a much-needed backup.

"We're looking to duplicate the technology in Saanich so, if something went wrong, they could come to our dispatch, and vice versa," he said.

Victoria Fire is also looking at making major overhauls to its dispatch equipment, which Fire Chief Jeff Lambert admitted is "antiquated."

Lambert said he is looking at all the dispatch options to decide whether Victoria should fold into Saanich's communications centre or upgrade its own equipment.

Lambert agrees there is a crucial need for dispatch centres that operate seamlessly on the same system.

"Inter-operability is huge," Lambert said.

"Any major tragedy we've seen in emergency services usually can be attributed to a lack of communications."

dspalding@timescolonist.com

kderosa@timescolonist.com

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Colwood+View+Royal+fire+dispatch+service+from+Saanich/6046330/story.html#ixzz1kdBktsKA

BC Transit is considering light rail as a solution, running from the Westshore to downtown Victoria. The project comes with a price tag of $950 million dollars. But before they give it the green light, more than $8 million will be spent in surveys and research.

The Light Rail Task Force is looking for volunteers to participate in three different focus groups. The groups will look at different options to cover the local funding portion of the LRT project.

If you are interested in applying, you need to complete the only survey by February 5th to be considered.

For more information, or to fill out the survey, go to http://www.lrtlocalfunding.ca

Four silver-tinted shovels don't move a lot of dirt, but with the demolition of a few tired structures going on in the background, four shovels tossing around a few pounds of topsoil signalled the official start of construction of the Island's largest development.

The creation of the $1-billion Capital City Centre, to be built over nearly 14 acres at what was known as Colwood Corners, started Monday with League Financial Partners turning the soil on a project that will be built out over 20 years.

"It has been a long time in coming," said Adam Gant, CEO of League Financial, noting they started planning for the project in 2006.

The project is sweeping in scope with 12 residential highrise towers; four office towers; four-storey, wood-framed residential buildings with commercial at grade; two-storey townhomes, multi-storey office buildings and a public plaza with various amenities.

And while there will be plenty of activity in the area — at the peak of construction there will be 500 construction jobs on site — the payoff of seeing the first buildings coming out of the ground is unlikely to happen until the fall after excavation for underground parking has been completed.

Gant said that day will likely be the most gratifying.

The project will be built in a number of phases over the next two decades. The phased-in approach is designed to allow League Financial to remain flexible and respond to market conditions over the duration of the project.

"It allows us to mitigate market-related risks, ride out economic cycles and fine-tune development plans for future phases," said Gant, noting they will lead with commercial space to help drive demand in the area.

"And because of the way we have changed the phasing model, we can build any given building by itself. We have 'siloed' the parking and infrastructure needs of any building," he said. "That means we can respond, we can build office space, we can change the sizing of units — smaller, single-bedrooms or larger units — depending on what the market is looking for."

The other advantage is maintaining construction activity.

"We're going to keep chugging along so every time we finish a building, we launch a new one. That way, we're not going to oversupply the market," he said.

The first phase, now underway, will cost $250 million and be built out over the next five years.

It will be developed in three steps, the first being a four-storey residential building on top of a 35,000-square-foot London Drugs. There are also three other retail buildings and a six-storey office tower.

The second step of that phase is a 26-storey residential tower that will claim the title of tallest building on the Island, and the final step will be second 26-storey highrise, a four-storey residential building and commercial space for a 33,000-square-foot grocery store and other retailers.

Colwood Mayor Carol Hamilton said the foundations for the development can't come above grade fast enough.

"This day has been more than five years in the planning," Hamilton said. "This is one of the fastest-growing regions in B.C. and this development is a fundamental building block in our award-winning Official Community Plan. It creates a revitalized core to our community [and] brings in mixed use, residential and community development and associated jobs."

Hamilton said it also lets the city catch up a little.

"Colwood has been the centre, and we kind of got lost in the latest and most recent of buildouts," she said with a nod to neighbours in Langford and View Royal that have seen significant development over the last decade. "Now as things pick back up, we can do that. I really see Colwood being another city centre in the West Shore."

It will certainly add some life to what has become a slightly dated area, added Dan Spinner, CEO of the West Shore Chamber of Commerce.

"I've heard them talk about 4,000 residents, not including the commercial and office people who will be here. There could be 5,000-6,000 people here a decade from now and that's really exciting for the city," he said. "This helps the tax base of the City of Colwood, it helps the residents and finances of the city.

"And it brings an energy and dynamism that Colwood Corners really needs."

But with that influx of people, there is the question of adequate infrastructure to deal with it.

Spinner said it's a bit of a Catch-22.

"The tax base increases with [development like this]. And as Langford has proven [after development], then you can start to make improvements and deal with it," he said. "At least, now there's $1 billion being invested in the City of Colwood and that will give them a lot of breathing room."

Spinner noted the big infrastructure question involves transportation.

"If I was League, I would be working really hard on [light-rapid transit] or at least on the option of the E&N [railway] in the meantime," he said, noting LRT is probably a tough sell when it carries a $1-billion price tag amid economic uncertainty.

The project is located on the approved alignment of a future rapid transit system.

Gant said Capital City Centre will answer both short and long-term needs of the area.

"Colwood and Langford are showing projections of six per cent growth, and a lot of the growth in the region is being channelled here," he said. "And we have based our interest in this project off the longer-term trends.

"Obviously, we started in a period of economic contraction, but we are still forecasting off the long term, and Victoria has had excellent long-term appreciation of real estate prices and still has good in-migration."

League already has landed anchor commercial tenants London Drugs, Royal Bank an Coast Capital Savings. It is in talks with national grocery retailers and other retail outlets.

The first office tenant will be League itself, which will take 25,000 square feet in the first office building in Phase One.

The first phase of the residential development, a four-storey building, sold out its pre-sales last fall and will put the rest on the market closer to the building's completion. They are priced starting in the low $200,000-range. Prices for the 26-storey tower are expected to be released this summer.

aduffy@timescolonist.com

City bylaw officer puts pressure on graffiti taggers

To Phil Williams, graffiti tags might as well be photo ID.

Under the Six Mile bridge, he sees evidence of one tagger who is under investigation, and a spray-painted mark of another young man well known to Victoria police. A third larger piece has the signature of a graffiti artist who Williams knows moved to Saskatchewan.

“I see familiar tags all the time,” said Williams, a Colwood bylaw officer. “This place is out of my jurisdiction, but it’s great to gather intelligence.”

While technically in View Royal, Williams photographs new graffiti under the bridge for his growing database of tags, built up over the last four months. He’s a man on a mission to quash graffiti and tagging in Colwood.

Colwood launched a concerted anti-graffiti program in October in the wake of extensive tagging on signs and buildings throughout the community last year. The City hired Williams, an anti-graffiti guru and former Langford bylaw officer who helped that city build unprecedented civil lawsuits against two graffiti vandals.

In Colwood to date, Williams has identified seven taggers, three of whom have painted over 56 tags as part of community service. All are young men, either in their teens or early 20s.

He has photographed and cataloged 376 tags, the majority of which are now painted over. Two taggers are paying $571 to public works for cleanup costs, and bylaw officers have issued 12 municipal tickets for vandalism. Parents of one tagger even surrendered 68 cans of spray paint.

“The program is working and we’ve made huge strides,” said Colwood bylaw enforcement manager Kevin Atkinson. “We’ve picked the right person to do the job, and the city is looking better for it.”

Colwood pays Williams' part-time salary, but the majority of the anti-graffiti program is funded through donations from local businesses. Rona gave $460 worth of paint for a community “paint out” in November, and Thriftys, London Drugs and Best Buy have also donated to the cause. The City is working with BC Hydro and Canada Post on graffiti removal funding agreements.

“Corporate citizens have stepped up in a huge way with no questions asked. They ask, ‘how can we help?’,” Atkinson said. “They’re getting value for their money.”

On the ground, Williams often works “undercover” in plain clothes, monitoring common tagging areas, and passing on locations of new tags to City staff. Colwood public works has standing orders to paint over new tags within 24 hours.

“Taggers want to be noticed. If they tag the same spot you have to clean it right away. Persistence pays off,” Williams said.

“Several of the most prolific taggers have been caught, but a new generation is coming up so its important to keep up the momentum.”

The officers think the rate of tagging in the city is falling, but they won’t really know until after the winter. They doubt the city will ever be 100 per cent free of graffiti tags. “It’s not about graffiti elimination," Williams said. "it’s about managing it, keeping it to a minimum."

Some communities have a “freewall” for graffiti artists to paint, but those projects, while admirable, usually promote “bleed out” into surrounding neighbourhoods, the officers say. The skate park in Langford is a prime example.

“There is huge bleed out into (Langford),” Williams said. “There’s many tags on (Belmont) school grounds and local businesses.”

Colwood bylaw officers network with anti-graffiti officers in other municipalities, such as Langford and Victoria, in an effort not to just push the problem into another community. One partnership with West Shore RCMP community policing section could play a key role in future anti-graffiti efforts.

Community policing staff have agreed to input Colwood municipal ticket convictions linked to graffiti into the PRIME database, the primary offender database for police in B.C.

That effort “is in its infancy,” Williams said, but as it grows, police and courts across the region will be able to see municipal tickets issued to taggers, not just the rarer criminal convictions. “If someone gets a ticket for graffiti, now the police are notified,” Williams said. On Colwood’s end, it is bumping up vandalism fines to $500 from $100.

The $20,000 anti-graffiti program is considered a six-month pilot project and Colwood council will need to decide in April if it will be funded again. Last year, the first six months of cleaning up tags cost the City about $10,000.

Williams and Atkinson told the protective services committee that businesses are willing to donate paint and equipment, but without certainty of continuing, it’s difficult to get commitments.

“I’m in a bit of a catch-22,” Williams said. “A lot of donations have come in, and a lot of sponsors are interested, but it’s hard for them to commit if they don’t know if the program will continue or not.”

The driving force behind the anti-graffiti effort is to make the city look clean, polished, and unthreatening. Atkinson said its hard to directly measure the benefits of graffiti abatement, but he argues council and the community are getting their money’s worth.

“There is a lot of intangible things behind this. Graffiti can give the perception an area is not safe, it deters business,” Atkinson said. “The West Shore is a place we want people to live and work, and tagging is a deterrent.”

editor@goldstreamgazette.com

By Sam Van Schie - Goldstream News Gazette
Published: January 06, 2012 12:00 PM
Updated: January 06, 2012 12:58 PM

Colwood councillors were bewildered by a series of events that led to the City spending $1,000 per month to rent a pickup truck for its public works manager, while money was sitting in a reserve fund to buy replacement vehicles.

Last year the City spent $10,000 renting a truck worth $30,000.

It didn’t take the new council long to realize it needed to remedy this situation. At its Dec. 19 meeting, council gave the nod to staff to buy a new vehicle right away.

There was some discussion about waiting for staff to prepare a report on replacement options, but ultimately council decided not to delay the decision any longer.

“This has dragged on long enough already,” Coun. Rob Martin said before putting forward the motion to forgo the report and buy the truck as soon as possible.

Coun. Shari Lukens agreed, remarking, “We need a truck, we have the money allocated to buy a truck, and we’re still going to need the truck a month from now, if we wait for a report.”

Council put a $30,000 spending cap on the new vehicle, and asked staff to consider buying a good used vehicle rather than a new one.

The last council had declined to buy any new vehicles until it had a full equipment replacement strategy, including figures on exactly how much each vehicle was being used and for what purpose.

But the City only recently obtained the proper computer software to track this information, and according to engineering director Michael Baxter the earliest this report could be ready is March 2012.

Last February, shortly after the council of the day called for the replacement strategy, the 17-year-old pickup truck used by public works manager Dan Brazier broke down and couldn’t be repaired.

Without approval to buy a new one, Baxter made the decision to rent the truck, rather than see public works fall behind on its tasks by going without.

Coun. Judith Cullington, chair for the transportation and public infrastructure committee, supported the immediate purchase of a pickup truck, but advised that the money in the vehicle replacement fund should be used sparingly.

“There are a great many vehicles in the City’s fleet that are close to or passed their replacement date,” Cullington cautioned. “We need the replacement strategy to make sure we’re getting the best value for our money.”

Included in the strategy will be comparative pricing for vehicles with hybrid, diesel and gasoline engines, so council will be able to compare costs of a vehicle over its lifespan, given projected increases in the price of gas and the city’s commitment to pay a carbon tax on its emissions.

For the ease of the current purchase, however, council advised staff to choose the cheapest option, a gasoline engine.

news@goldstreamgazette.com

By Sam Van Schie - Goldstream News Gazette
Published: January 13, 2012 10:00 AM
Updated: January 13, 2012 10:19 AM

Colwood plans to ask residents to decide the fate of the aging and ailing Esquimalt Lagoon bridge — eventually.

At a Jan. 9 council meeting, council agreed to start planning a referendum question, regarding whether or not to invest public money into saving the bridge, for at the next municipal election in three years.

Coun. Teresa Harvey proposed the referendum and said, while the next election is a long way off, it will give council time to educate the public on the complexities of maintaining the bridge over the long term.

“If we can lay out the options and the cost on a referendum, people can make an informed decision,” Harvey said. “Ultimately we need to ask the public if they want to spend money on this.”

In the meantime, council stayed the course of its predecessor, advising City staff to make no increase to the maintenance budget for the Lagoon bridge.

Given this, Colwood engineering director Michael Baxter said the bridge might not last until the next election.

Piles that form the foundation of the 80-year-old timber trestle are rotting and being consumed by shipworms. Land under the north and south approaches is being eroded away.

The next scheduled structural evaluation for the bridge is in 2013, and Baxter said that’s likely to result in load restrictions, either barring vehicles from the bridge or limiting traffic to one lane.

The cost to rehabilitate the bridge is estimated at $750,000, but there are bigger problem facing the Coburg peninsula.

A heavy storm at high tide could generate waves that cut through the peninsula and make travel along Ocean Boulevard, a popular commuter route, impossible.

“This could happen tomorrow or two years from now, we can’t predict these things,” Baxter said.

Strong storms have already been known to throw logs onto the road, and wave activity will increase as sea level rises.

“I wouldn’t bet on there still being a peninsula there in 50 years,” said Coun. Judith Cullington, noting that most large capital investments in infrastructure should last longer than that.

The last consultant report the City received on the lagoon was from Seabulk Systems in 2008. It offered multi-million dollar options to protect the Coburg peninsula from wave damage.

The City could spend $2 million every five to 10 years replenishing the beach with sand or build small breakwaters called groynes to stop the sediment from migrating down the shore for $5 million to $12 million, depending on the design.

The previous council deemed these costs unreasonable, and this council made no move to further explore those options.

Public consultation in 2010, prior to a temporary closure of the Lagoon bridge for improvements to the north approach, found no clear opinion on whether residents wanted the bridge to remain open — a third of respondents wanted the bridge open, a third wanted it closed and a third wanted the City to decide.

The future of Coburg Peninsula has been in jeopardy since the Royal Bay gravel mine closed in 2007, bringing an end to the supply of sediment that originally built up the sand spit.

news@goldstreamgazette.com

By Edward Hill - Goldstream News Gazette
Published: October 31, 2011 11:00 AM
Updated: October 31, 2011 6:08 PM

Province funds $100 million project for schools in Langford, Colwood

“I would acknowledge as I was tripping over your duct tape walking down the hallway, quite possibly your ‘bricks and mortar’ are getting a little bit tired,” Abbott said Monday at Belmont secondary. “I’m delighted to say that the Sooke School District will get not one, not one and a half, but two new high schools.”

The announcement has set in motion two virtually simultaneous $50 million construction projects, one at the Glen Lake site and the other in Royal Bay, over the next three or four years. Kids in Grade 5 today will be the first cohort of youth in several generations to enter a new West Shore high school.

To contribute to the project, SD 62 will sell the seven hectare Belmont property for an estimated $30 million, making the ministry’s net contribution $70 million. With the district’s plan authorized, the education minister and SD 62 staff don’t expect to engage in a formal public process to sell the property.

“This is the most amazing day I’ve had as superintendent. It’s probably the most amazing day I’ve had in my 30 years in the Sooke School District,” said SD 62 superintendent Jim Cambridge. “It is the future of our district. I couldn’t be more happy.”

“I’m over the moon. Christmas came early,” added SD 62 board chair Wendy Hobbs.

Over the past four years, trustees, district staff, students, West Shore mayors and MLAs have waged a relentless campaign of nagging and cajoling the Education Ministry that the duct tape won’t hold the overflow of students, and that the Sooke District is growing — and fast.

Abbott said the community’s overwhelming and consistent advocacy for the plan played a key role in finding capital funding for new West Shore high schools. He singled out Belmont Grade 12 student Ravi Parmar, who organized a student walkout last year, and told the minister about sorry, shabby state of his high school.

“I can’t believe it’s all over. People have been working on this for 15 years,” Parmar said. “Everyone has worked hard to get to this point today.”

“Pushing has been team effort, with lots of support, lots of advocacy from everyone at the West Shore,” Abbott said. “(The schools) certainly are due and quite possibly overdue.”

The two new schools will hold about 800 students each, and each will have a different focus. A new Belmont at the Glen Lake site will use Goudy and Bear Mountain turf fields under an agreement with Langford. Colwood and the West Shore Chamber of Commerce are working to build an arts complex next to the new high school at Royal Bay.

“From an economic development point of view this is huge,” said West Shore Chamber of Commerce CEO Dan Spinner. “There were people leaving the community because they were worried about the quality of the schools. This changes everything.”

Juan de Fuca MLA John Horgan (NDP) was happy to give credit to the Liberal government for committing money to one of the few districts seeing student growth.

“Now we can say goodbye to this site and look to an exciting future for our kids and our families,” Horgan said. “I’m grateful to George, I’m grateful to government recognizing this is the right thing to do. When something is right it’s right. Replacing this school has been right for some time, this government recognizes it, now we can step ahead.”

New high schools will finally allow the district to reconfigure it’s grades — and avoid fields of portable classrooms — has Grade 6 is shifted from elementary to middle school and Grade 9 is shifted into high school.

“This will free up elementary school space, which will be crucial in two or three years,” Cambridge said.

The superintendent expects the design and building phase to last three or four years.

“Certainly there is a good construction climate, but we won’t know (a timetable) until we have our architectural plans,” Cambridge said. “But we’re hoping kids in Grades 5 now will be going to new high schools.”

editor@goldstreamgazette.com

For all who wish to register their opposition and non-consent for the installation of a Smart Meter on their residence or business, you need to know that the "Delay List" is not enough.  

It seems that the B.C. Hydro Smart Metering Team is most likely using their "delay list," which they say doesn't exist, in a strategic way.   

By requesting Hydro to flag your account for delayed installation, you are, in their view, implying that at some future date of their choosing, you will be informed, and you will have inadvertently agreed to accept the meter.   

In this way, Hydro can determine which areas may be most resistant, and thereby set up a schedule for a smart meter rollout in "quieter" areas first, following through at a later point when the "ground" is prepared, and doing so in the guise of "implied consent." 

With each request for opt-out, delayed installation, or no installation, B.C. Hydro's mantra has been that there "is no list," no avenue for resistance, and no confirmation given for a flagged account.  

In light of this developing insight, a further step is now highly recommended.  Even if Hydro has told you that your account has been flagged for a delayed installation, you need to send the following e-mail to them at smartmeters@bchydro.com  ASAP

DIRECTIONS:

• Download the following letter (click on download below).  
• Cut and paste it into your e-mail.  Adjust to fit if necessary,
• Replace the highlighted cues with your information.
• Address it, first to Hydro as above, and then to addresses listed below.
• Send. 

E-mail is fine as long as you keep a copy for your records and a copy at your residence or business premise.   

Also copy this to your local Mayor and Council, and local MLA. 

NB *** 

Keep two copies for yourself: one for your records, and one to post on your meter.  

If you wish, delete your Account # when Ccing additional copies. 

Copy to