The CRD is talking about any sewage treatment plant that is built to recover heat from the sewage. a great idea and I support it. But what I wonder is why the CRD is not looking at the potential to generate electrical power from the water system?
The dam at the Sooke reservoir could easily have a turbine or two put into it and it could produce electrical power. Right now that potential power is all wasted when it could be producing green power. Doing this would be a quick and easy way to increase power production with no impact on the environment.
So why is the CRD not doing this?
I honestly do not know why communities all around BC are not making use of turbines on their water systems to produce green power.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Counter Petition underway for borrowing money for Johnson Street Bridge
The City of Victoria council has passed the motion to authorize borrowing $42 000 000 for the construction of a new Johnson Street Bridge. The council also chose not put this borrowing to a referendum but instead have decided to use the counter petition process.
The counter petition process is one that is used in BC to ensure public input/consent into capital borrowing by local governments. The idea is that if 10% of the electors are not willing to sign a petition to push an issue to a referendum means that there is public consent for the project. The thinking behind the creation of this process was to make it easier for local goverments to go forward with borrowing when there is broad based public support for a project. Local goverments seem to have been using the process more often that they should be, certainly the bridge project is a big project that has been rushed and should undergo the scrutiny of a referendum.
People have 45 days to formally sign the petition. Only eligible electors may sign. The final time for signatures to be presented to the City is January 4th 2010.
There is no formal list of electors for the City, so there is a bit of a problem being able to tell how many people count towards the 10% needed on a petition. The estimate is that there are around 64 000 electors in the City.
From the 2006 census, the City of Victoria had 78,055 residents, of which 61,525 were of citizens of voting age. There are also non-residents listed in the census and people have not lived in BC long enough to qualify as voters. Based on the 2006 and given that it is now 2009, I would be surprised if there were more than 59,000 eligible voters.
The 63,300 eligible voters in the 2008 election seems out of sync with the census numbers. In any case, it seems that 6400 signatures will be needed to have the counter petition succeed. Realistically the organizers behind the counter petition will have to get at least several thousand more signatures as many people that do not live in the City of Victoria will sign the petition. Some people will also sign more than once.
Given that Christmas is coming, there are really only four weeks left for the signatures to be gathered. This means getting about 2000 signatures a week for the next four weeks.
I will be signing the counter petition and will be helping to get the signatures needed, as I can. I have been unhappy with the process the City has been going through to build the new bridge and feel that pushing the issue to a referendum will cause the city to rethink the planning process for the bridge. Since there is no rush to build the bridge, time can be taken to consult with the public in a much more meaningful manner.
The counter petition process is one that is used in BC to ensure public input/consent into capital borrowing by local governments. The idea is that if 10% of the electors are not willing to sign a petition to push an issue to a referendum means that there is public consent for the project. The thinking behind the creation of this process was to make it easier for local goverments to go forward with borrowing when there is broad based public support for a project. Local goverments seem to have been using the process more often that they should be, certainly the bridge project is a big project that has been rushed and should undergo the scrutiny of a referendum.
People have 45 days to formally sign the petition. Only eligible electors may sign. The final time for signatures to be presented to the City is January 4th 2010.
There is no formal list of electors for the City, so there is a bit of a problem being able to tell how many people count towards the 10% needed on a petition. The estimate is that there are around 64 000 electors in the City.
From the 2006 census, the City of Victoria had 78,055 residents, of which 61,525 were of citizens of voting age. There are also non-residents listed in the census and people have not lived in BC long enough to qualify as voters. Based on the 2006 and given that it is now 2009, I would be surprised if there were more than 59,000 eligible voters.
The 63,300 eligible voters in the 2008 election seems out of sync with the census numbers. In any case, it seems that 6400 signatures will be needed to have the counter petition succeed. Realistically the organizers behind the counter petition will have to get at least several thousand more signatures as many people that do not live in the City of Victoria will sign the petition. Some people will also sign more than once.
Given that Christmas is coming, there are really only four weeks left for the signatures to be gathered. This means getting about 2000 signatures a week for the next four weeks.
I will be signing the counter petition and will be helping to get the signatures needed, as I can. I have been unhappy with the process the City has been going through to build the new bridge and feel that pushing the issue to a referendum will cause the city to rethink the planning process for the bridge. Since there is no rush to build the bridge, time can be taken to consult with the public in a much more meaningful manner.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Home Inspector Ordered to Pay
A BC home inspector was ordered to pay close to $200 000 to couple in Vancouver for a faulty home inspection. I am happy to see this happen as there seems to be no accountability for home inspectors. Mike Holmes has a new TV show called "Holmes Inspection" about faulty home inspections in the Toronto area.
In our case the man we used, recommended to us, was a nice enough guy and seemed moderately through, but in retrospect I am amazed what he missed:
An older local realtor once let me in on the reasons he uses home inspectors. The only purpose he saw for them was to use the report as a negotiating tool. He was very cynical about them and said that all home inspectors take their direction from realtors because that is where the business comes from.
I would like to see some changes to to liability on home purchases:
In our case the man we used, recommended to us, was a nice enough guy and seemed moderately through, but in retrospect I am amazed what he missed:
- The basement was not permitted
- The basement was not a legal living space
- The attic was not permitted
- The stairs up and down were not built to code
- The kitchen door was not to code
- He did not do any manner of thermal inspection to see what state the insulation was in
- He missed the problems with the sewer connection
- He missed the lack of venting for the downstairs bathroom
- He missed the incorrect drain pipes and improper connection between the downstairs bathroom and kitchen plumbing
- He missed a main support joist having been cut in two and no shoring up on either side
An older local realtor once let me in on the reasons he uses home inspectors. The only purpose he saw for them was to use the report as a negotiating tool. He was very cynical about them and said that all home inspectors take their direction from realtors because that is where the business comes from.
I would like to see some changes to to liability on home purchases:
- Home inspectors should be held accountible for the reports they issue - certainly the home inspector should be able to point all the work that was done without a permit and make a note of it. The home inspector should be responsible for detailing everything in a house that is not up to the building code.
- Realtors should be held responsible for the state and condition of a property - if you are listing a house, you are responsible for finding and advertising all major defects. The selling realtor should be the one responsible for doing the home inspection and then making it available to everyone.
Monday, November 09, 2009
November 11th
On Wednesday I will not be at any Cenotaph. I will be walking along Shelbourne Street from Bay to Hillside and back. The tree planted along Shelbourne were planted as a living memorial to the people from BC that died in World War One.
I plan on starting at 10:45 and welcome anyone that wishes to join me. I will be walking with the Quaker form of worship in my mind. This means I will only speak if I feel the spirit of God is telling me to speak.
I plan on starting at 10:45 and welcome anyone that wishes to join me. I will be walking with the Quaker form of worship in my mind. This means I will only speak if I feel the spirit of God is telling me to speak.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Water rates
Not that long ago we paid a total of $2.64 per 100 cubic feet of water used, now it is up to $3.9162 per 100 cubic feet. That is a 50% increase in just over two years. Our summer period water and utility bill from the City of Victoria came to almost $500!
I decided to look into getting a rain barrel to see if I could reduce our summer time use of water. The prices I found for 300 to 400 litre barrels was about $100 to $200. Being an analytical guy I thought I would do some math and see if it would make any difference financially for us.
Working with a 400 litre barrel, this is 14.125 cubic feet, or in water rate terms $0.55 worth of water. For me to save enough water to pay for the cost of the barrel, I would have to fill it up and use it 180 to 360 times to cover the cost.
So how many times would I expect to be able to fill this barrel in the period from May 1st to September 15th, roughly the limits of when I need to water around here? The barrel would be getting water from about 400 square feet of roof and using the data from the UVic weather network for my neighbourhood, I could come up with an approximate number times I could fill it. Looks like about 8 times is what would be a 'normal' year, if I am lucky that could be as high as 12 times, but I am going use an average of 8 times a year. It would take 23 to 46 years for me to save enough water to pay for the initial cost of the barrel.
So how expensive would my water rates have to be to make the rain barrel a useful investment? If I am willing to allow for a seven year return on the investment, and this is longer term than 90% of people consider worthwhile when considering home efficiency improvements, I am looking at water rates of $12.50 to $25 per 100 cubic feet of water, three to six times as much as I pay now.
The normal pay back time that makes the majority of people choose to do something is under three years. At three years the water rates would have to be $30 to $60.
I decided to look into getting a rain barrel to see if I could reduce our summer time use of water. The prices I found for 300 to 400 litre barrels was about $100 to $200. Being an analytical guy I thought I would do some math and see if it would make any difference financially for us.
Working with a 400 litre barrel, this is 14.125 cubic feet, or in water rate terms $0.55 worth of water. For me to save enough water to pay for the cost of the barrel, I would have to fill it up and use it 180 to 360 times to cover the cost.
So how many times would I expect to be able to fill this barrel in the period from May 1st to September 15th, roughly the limits of when I need to water around here? The barrel would be getting water from about 400 square feet of roof and using the data from the UVic weather network for my neighbourhood, I could come up with an approximate number times I could fill it. Looks like about 8 times is what would be a 'normal' year, if I am lucky that could be as high as 12 times, but I am going use an average of 8 times a year. It would take 23 to 46 years for me to save enough water to pay for the initial cost of the barrel.
So how expensive would my water rates have to be to make the rain barrel a useful investment? If I am willing to allow for a seven year return on the investment, and this is longer term than 90% of people consider worthwhile when considering home efficiency improvements, I am looking at water rates of $12.50 to $25 per 100 cubic feet of water, three to six times as much as I pay now.
The normal pay back time that makes the majority of people choose to do something is under three years. At three years the water rates would have to be $30 to $60.
Monday, November 02, 2009
25 Years of CFUV
The station continues on. I worked at the station from 1988 to 1990 for wages that were less than nothing but the job was cool, I put in 60 to 70 hour weeks while still pretending to go to school fulltime at UVic.
CFUV spoiled me, I could not work for commercial radio after the freedom and wild fun of the 'FUV. I had several years of defacto carte blanche to do what I wanted to.
Working for Tim Chan also made it great. Tim has some the driest humour I have ever heard. He was station manager and did not really make enough money to consider it as a career.
It was while I was with CFUV that I had my short stint doing concert promotion. Five concerts and I broke even, I quit at that point. After my last gig I had to empty my bank account to pay the musician, I realized the stress of the gigs was and the money that I could lose was more than I could take.
I loved being a DJ and having to by up on the new music. I loved interviewing bands and musicians. though I did do one major clanger and called one woman by the wrong name. I loved the constant crisis of the moment to keep a station on the air. Crisis and ADD go together well, a crisis calms me down.
One quick anecdote, in 1989 Don Ross had released his first album and was not well known at all. I had not had a chance to hear it yet. I am in the studio doing my Friday morning folk music show and someone was calling the station. I answered because I was the only in the station. A woman asked to speak with Don Ross.
I asked her who is Don Ross. She told me is was this amazing guitarist about to be interviewed at the station about his first album and she was his agent need to talk with him. Yes children, life was much harder before we all had mobile phones.
Clearly I was the one that supposed to be interviewing Don in a matter of a few minutes - no one had told. Either Magnus (the program director) or Colin( the music director) forgot to tell me that they had arranged this interview. I had to quickly find the album and the publicity material so that I might have some hope of being able to interview him.
I managed to read enough stuff, and Don is easy to interview, so it went well. It was this sort of sudden crisis that I loved. I loved things like having to fix a microphone for a DJ by soldering some leads while an LP was playing or having to drop everything where ever I was in town to race to the station if some volunteer did not show to do their show.
If I had the time I would get back into doing radio again, I have the face and body for radio.
CFUV spoiled me, I could not work for commercial radio after the freedom and wild fun of the 'FUV. I had several years of defacto carte blanche to do what I wanted to.
Working for Tim Chan also made it great. Tim has some the driest humour I have ever heard. He was station manager and did not really make enough money to consider it as a career.
It was while I was with CFUV that I had my short stint doing concert promotion. Five concerts and I broke even, I quit at that point. After my last gig I had to empty my bank account to pay the musician, I realized the stress of the gigs was and the money that I could lose was more than I could take.
I loved being a DJ and having to by up on the new music. I loved interviewing bands and musicians. though I did do one major clanger and called one woman by the wrong name. I loved the constant crisis of the moment to keep a station on the air. Crisis and ADD go together well, a crisis calms me down.
One quick anecdote, in 1989 Don Ross had released his first album and was not well known at all. I had not had a chance to hear it yet. I am in the studio doing my Friday morning folk music show and someone was calling the station. I answered because I was the only in the station. A woman asked to speak with Don Ross.
I asked her who is Don Ross. She told me is was this amazing guitarist about to be interviewed at the station about his first album and she was his agent need to talk with him. Yes children, life was much harder before we all had mobile phones.
Clearly I was the one that supposed to be interviewing Don in a matter of a few minutes - no one had told. Either Magnus (the program director) or Colin( the music director) forgot to tell me that they had arranged this interview. I had to quickly find the album and the publicity material so that I might have some hope of being able to interview him.
I managed to read enough stuff, and Don is easy to interview, so it went well. It was this sort of sudden crisis that I loved. I loved things like having to fix a microphone for a DJ by soldering some leads while an LP was playing or having to drop everything where ever I was in town to race to the station if some volunteer did not show to do their show.
If I had the time I would get back into doing radio again, I have the face and body for radio.
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