Tuesday, March 13, 2007

KISS FM NEWS SHORTS

(Pete McIntyre) http://www.1075kiss.com/news/headlines/

DVA Seeks Cash From Council

The Downtown Vernon Association is seeking city funding to keep its security patrols going to the end of the year. President Malcom Dunn appeared before city council Monday to ask for 40-thousand dollars. While some council members feel the city is already paying for policing and more bylaw officers,Dunn says their members feel more could be done,'We have 800 members paying taxes. We having parking revenues coming out of the downtown core and other things. There's an expectation that there's a minimum safety requirement in the downtown core.' The city will discuss the request at its next meeting. Councillor Juliette Cunningham, who owns a downtown business, feels the DVA has created a sense of hysteria in the downtown, and says the crime problems are more perception than reality.

City Will Pay to Battle the Beetle .(Pete McIntyre)
The city of Vernon will spend 62-thousand dollars to protect its trees from the pine beetle.
City council approved that motion about a month before the destructive bugs are expected to fly into Vernon. About a thousand ponderosa pines on city owned sites will have their trunks wrapped in windowscreening, or affixed with repellent. Most of the trees are located in the cemetery. Barry Beardsell was the lone council member against the move, feeling it won't work,'Yah, I think they're throwing money in the wind. I think they should get more involved the way the city of Kelowna did when they did it last year and have an effective program rather than running up to the cemetery and wrapping a bunch of trees right away.' Although the bugs could still damage the trees, Councillor Patrick Nicol feels the measures will work, noting they're based on recommendations by Dr Mike Carlson, from the BC Forest Service.

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