Thank you Kelowna!

Thanks to everyone who came out and voted for me in the 2008 municipal election! I'm thrilled to be serving as your councillor for another three years!

Where to Vote!

KELOWNA VOTING LOCATIONS
NOVEMBER 15, 2008
AS Matheson Elementary School 2090 Gordon Drive
Bankhead Elementary School 1280 Wilson Avenue
Black Mountain Elementary School 1650 Gallagher Road
Casorso Elementary School 3675 Casorso Road
Cedar Creek Community Centre 5160 Chute Lake Road
Dorothea Walker Elementary School 4346 Gordon Drive
East Kelowna Community Hall 2704 East Kelowna Road
Glenmore Elementary School 960 Glenmore Drive
KLO Middle School 3130 Gordon Drive
North Glenmore Elementary School 125 Glenmore Road North
Okanagan Mission Secondary School 4544 Gordon Drive
Parkinson Recreation Centre 1800 Parkinson Way
Raymer Elementary School 657 Raymer Avenue
Rutland Senior Secondary School 705 Rutland Road North
Saint Joseph’s Elementary School 839 Sutherland Avenue
South Kelowna Elementary School 4176 Spiers Road South
Rutland Elementary School 200 Mallach Road
Springvalley Middle School 350 Ziprick Road
UBC Okanagan Arts Building (ART102) 3333 University Way
Watson Road Elementary School 475 Yates Road

Qualified electors of the City of Kelowna may vote at any of the above locations upon presentation of acceptable identification and registration (check out kelowna.ca for more information).

Phil Johnson's Questions to Me

I had an e-mail from Phil Johnson at AM 1150 today posing some interesting questions.

Community Gardens:
This is something I've been working on with the Community Garden people (mainly Ruth Mellor- and also the Healthy Food Council, which I sit on. You'll notice that community gardens appear in the draft of the OCP which was released last Monday. I fully support community gardens, especially in areas of high density, and support using public land to accomplish this (it doesn't take as much land as one might think - check out the newest garden at St Paul and Cawston!). I also think green space around buildings can be used for food production - we'll be looking at new landscaping policy in the next few months and while the focus is on xeriscaping I think there is also room there for edible landscaping. Green roofs are an excellent opportunity to increase growing space and I support including that as a requirement for new development. Of course, you need the cooperation of the residents to make a community garden work (people have to want to garden!), but I think that by providing the space and leading by example the concept will become more widely accepted.

Banning Plastic Bags:
A bit more complicated than it sounds, strangely enough! If we ban plastic bags, then people buy plastic bags to put their garbage in (not so much the big plastic bags, but the "kitchen catchers"). If some of the retailers switch to biodegradable bags, then those make good garbage bags but they wreck havoc if they get mixed in with the recycling! So I would support a ban on regular plastic bags as long as we could also ensure an adequate supply of biodegradable bags - of course biodegradable bags aren't really totally biodegradable because there are still little bits that never disappear.So what we really want in the long run is to change people's behavior so that they don't put a bag in the bucket under their kitchen sink, but rather just wash out the bucket periodically then we could ban the plastic bags and not worry about the side effect of people buying bags!By the way, my family uses cloth bags :-)

Solar Energy Options:
It's really exciting that Mayor Shepherd is part of the 100,000 Solar Roofs project because she can bring al kinds of information to the table. Interestingly, when in Holland year before last we had the opportunity to meet with one of the world's leading solar experts.I don't know if the new BC Building Code requires buildings to be "solar ready" but I would support our by-laws requiring this - it's very inexpensive to put in the conduits during construction and then when the cost of the technology comes down it's easy to install. In any public buildings I support some form of alternate energy being used - whether solar, geo-thermal or some other type we are not yet aware of!

Municpally Run Car Co-op Program:
I'd need to review the business case for a municipally run car co-op before I could agree to it, but I would support any business that wanted to put one in operating by providing the parking spaces! This sems to be how most of the models work that I have seen in places like Vancouver, Montreal and Portland - private enterprise with some support from the municipality for parking. The vehicles should be hybrid or electric (possibly solar!) or very small like Smart Cars. In Gronigen in northern Holland they have a bicycle co-op where you can take a bike and leave it at another station - I'd like to explore that idea as well!

Water Conservation:
We have set goals for reduction of water consumption within the city's water service area. The biggest user on our system is outdoor irrigation - summer water rates as high as seven times the winter rate of water use because of people watering their lawns and gardens. We've made some good progress but there is more to be done. Part of the solution is to encourage drought tolerant plantings. Another solution is the use of greywater for indoor use, such as toilet flushing, and for irrigation. I support changing our by-laws to allow for this.

Banning Single Serve Water Bottles:
I'm not sure that we have the legislative ability at the city level to ban single serving water - probably would have to be provincial. But I do think that the availability of bottled water in vending machines has been a positive thing as it provides a healthy alternative to pop. We need to provide recycling boxes. Also, single servings are preferable to larger bottles in terms of not transmitting fluid borne illnesses.