You are presumed to be honest and responsible without evidence to the contrary beyond a reasonable doubt… on the balance of probablilties you are justified by 51 % likelyhood.
There is a walk through display trailer at the City Furniture parking lot on the 2000 Block Coutlee Avenue in Merritt. A set up person says that it will be ready for the public in the AM on Wednesday. Showcasing its new all fast fiber service to Merritt it has smart boards and appliances in a raised glass level walk through. A velvet rope barrier similar to a theater welcomes the interested at the bottom of a flight of about 7 stairs to the raised platform.
The last word going out the back end is ” Gigabit enabled future.”
Telus making its presence known in Merritt. Photo KDG
The display continues on to Vancouver Island after Merritt.
On this Day: March 30th 1964
The popular game show Jeopardy debuts with hoist Art Fleming.
Many places in BC and Alberta have upper levels that require a lot of snow removal. File Photo KDG
Easter Monday saw wet and rainy weather in Merritt, turning to heavy snowfall in the higher levels. Six inches of the heavy white stuff is reported on the highway east of Merritt. Hamilton Hill is an iconic landmark in view of downtown and begins the rise to the circa 1700 meter sea level summit of the Coqihalla connector to Kelowna above and the 600 meter elevation of the City of Merritt. The hill is called Hamilton after Merritt’s founder s middle name. William Hamilton Merritt the third. Merritt also married the daughter of Scottish retailer, Canadian Robert Simpson whose chain department store was also a Canadian Icon.
The city of Merritt, British Columbia is named after William Hamilton Merritt III, due to his role in bringing the railway through the Nicola Valley. In 1891, Merritt prospected for coal near where the city is today. Finding it, he organized the Nicola, Kamloops and Similkameen Coal and Railway Company to extend the rail line through to transport coal out of the valley. The railway also allowed settlement and industry to flourish in the valley. As demand for coal grew, the company was eventually bought by the Canadian Pacific Railway. source Wikipedia.
The video cams on the 1200 meter summit highway 5 Coqihalla shows new snow but not sticking to the road way in the afternoon on Monday. The 97 C highway cams at the 1700 Penask summit were not available at this writing.
On this day: March 29th 1886
Doctor John Pemberton brews his first bottle of Coca- Cola in his back yard in Atlanta.
Beef cattle get moved about from summer and winter range. Being fed all winter on the ranch then being moved up to higher pastures to graze on what nature provides makes an economy that we all have a stake in ( except Vegans).
Most range access by road is controlled by metal grated cattle guards in this area however it is good to close any barbed wire fence after use if one is still in service.
There are a number of feed lots here in the Merritt area. The lots function all year long, they are used for dairy cattle that are being matured to two years before being moved to the lower mainland for milk production.
Herd laws make farmers liable for loss of stock not kept behind fences, there can be failure in fences, however collisions with livestock are less frequent now.
On this Day: March 17th 2013
The largest meteorite ever observed hitting the moon lands on its backside.
ICBC and injury law add in a phone book ( to some a nuisance)
There was a young Telus employee at the library in Merritt last week. He had a little coin box in his hand and said that he worked for the phone company and was responsible for all 8000 pay phones in the province. ” I stay in a lot of Motels ” he proclaimed with an air of economic impact! its still a good deal a dollar gets you fifteen minutes of long distance , and there is an innate privacy . “They are still in airports and rural places”
Some estimates say that there is still about 10 percent of the population that use payphones however many are rarely used and revenues are way down.
Some people can’t afford cell phones and some area have no transponder.
The Canadian Radio and Television Commission regulates and licences broadcasting and communication in Canada and in the past made note of community benefits of the minority as a reason to award. Shaw Cable has local community channels in small communities that often have a one person employee presence.
Eitors note: Good luck to that young man as he defines his life by payphones we hope he also find defininition in some community organization.
On this day: February 23 1987
A super nova is observed, 1987a is seen in the Large Magellan Cloud.
The price of gasoline is down again in Merritt BC to 92.9 cents per liter at the down town Petro Canada, corner of Nicola and Voght.
A check on Gas Buddy shows that it is a full 5 cents a liter less money here then 5 BC outlets are selling gas for. The BC average is 96.9 a liter national is 10 cents a liter less and prices are trending down.
The City of Merritt has just received delivery on two replacement 21 passenger Chevrolet buses, they are replacing two diesel units and are gasoline. Reasonably there can be no connection to this with gas price however we don’t have a gasoline levi for transit in the City such as Vancouver’s.
A referendum over transit tax was defeated in the lower mainland last year. That tax would have been a increase to the Provincial Sales tax like US cities Seattle and Los Angeles.
Merritt is part of the provincial transit system.
British Columbia Transportation Financing Authority (BCTFA)
The dedicated tax for the British Columbia Transportation Financing Authority on clear gasoline and clear diesel fuel sold anywhere in the province is 6.75¢ per liter.
Trans Link:Vancouver area.
The dedicated tax on clear gasoline and clear diesel fuel sold inside the South Coast British Columbia transportation service region (SCTA) is 17¢ per litre.
Frank Trenholm installs new license plates to new buses delivered to Merritt, Feb 3/ 16
Victoria Area:
The dedicated tax on clear gasoline and clear diesel fuel sold inside the Victoria regional transit service area (VRTA) is 3.5¢ per liter.
Total BC taxes including 7 (6.5) cent carbon tax is 21.17 cents for us here in Merritt. Most expensive is Vancouver @ 31.17 a liter.
The carbon tax element is supposed to be a neutral tax and is used to reduce personal and corporate income tax:
The tax puts a price on carbon to:
Encourage individuals, businesses, industry and others to use less fossil fuel and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions;
send a consistent price signal;
ensure those who produce emissions pay for them; and
make clean energy alternatives more attractive.
There is also federal excise tax of 10 cents and a 5 percent GST, there are no taxes dedicated to transit or road maintenance or construction on alternate energies. This in our view can make carbon tax regressive.
Tax on diesel fuel is slightly higher for BC but federal taxes are less then half that of gasoline.
Merritt’s total minimum tax on gasoline is 32.73 cents a liter,Vancouver is 44.28 cents. As taxes move toward 50 percent of the pump price it raises the specter and possibility of regulation and world market Alberta oil less attractive.
KDG.
On this day February 5th 1958
A hydrogen device is lost by the US Air force off the coast of Georgia never to be recovered.
TV news Kamloops BC reports on a death in Voght Park, Merritt. File Photo KDG
Congratulations to Rick Arnish on his retirement after 46 years with the Pattison Group finish up as a chair. Good luck in your continued contributions to the community post retirement. (as reported by CFJC on Wednesday)
Channel Seven CFJC has transmitters in 8 communities in the BC interior including Merritt. It is also available as channel 25 on the Bell system.
On this Day: January 21 1915
The service organization Kiwanis International is founded in Detroit Michigan.
Saddle Maker festival era Corner of Nicola And Garcia, Merritt BC File photo: KDG
Al Clarke retired from local radio ran a small business for a time away from the mike. The import from Powel River BC to Merritt had a promotion company called media Management.
Well before social media and smart technologies Al had an office in the corner building at Nicola and Garcia avenue, Across from the Grand hotel in Merritt.
Customers included Sanders and Company and forest concerns. We remember a conversation back when the Hedley Blast, music festival, in Hedley BC was failing under the watch of the organizer (locals and noise). Al had a keen appreciation serving an enthusiasm to see possibilities that could bring a festival to Merritt in what was to become the successful Merritt Mountain Music Festival. ( defunct in2010) :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merritt_Mountain_Music_Festival
Al is retired now and is a fluent social media friend. Kudos to him for his insights and all the years of watching council and broadcast at Radio NL Merritt and Q101 FM Merritt. https://www.facebook.com/al.clarke.3910?fref=ts
Happy retirement Al you sure were an asset and still are! Al was bringing us up to speed on Blue Monday at his writing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedley
Voght Street office of a local mine benefiting from new Hydro infrastructure. File Photo KDG
Robin a worker for Shaw Cable was pulling fiber through a pipe on Voght street here in Merritt Thursday. The laid off hydro worker said he had to change jobs when Hydro laid off a lot of people to accommodate apprentice trained workers.
The cable came from Parker Drive,Telus has lines on the poles above as well as Hydro lines in the top position on the poles.
When asked about site C he thought that that may be the reason for the lay off. He was aware of some of hydro’s activities in alternate energy including replacing some oil burning generators in small communities , working with distilling algae from sewage as well as some windmills.
BC Hydro’s Power Smart program encourages energy conservation among its residential, commercial, and industrial customers. The program also aims to promote energy saving retail products and building construction, and includes a “Sustainable Communities Program”. Its in-house Resource Smart program is used to identify and implement efficiency gains at existing BC Hydro facilities. BC Hydro also practices energy conservation at its generating facilities through the continuous monitoring and efficient use of the water resources used to power its generators.
BC Hydro is committed by the BC government’s Energy Plan to achieve electric power self-sufficiency in the province by 2016, with all new generation plants having zero net greenhouse gas emissions by the same year.[28] In 2013, BC Hydro released an Integrated Resource Plan which includes meeting at least 66 percent of the expected increase in electricity demand through increased energy efficiency.
BC Hydro has also entered into energy purchase contracts with a new category of company created by special legislation, Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to buy electricity generated from intermittent renewable sources, mainly from small capacity run of river hydro and more recently, wind power, wood residue energy, and energy from organic municipal waste. There has been some criticism of this policy on the basis that it will result in Hydro paying significantly higher rates to private producers than it would have if the power were self-generated.
BC has a policy not to develop nuclear power.
: source Wikipedia
BC Hydro operates 31 hydroelectric facilities and three natural gas-fueled thermal power plants. As of 2014, 95 per cent of the province’s electricity was produced by hydroelectric generating stations, which consist mostly of large hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Peace Rivers. BC Hydro’s various facilities generate between 43,000 and 54,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, depending on prevailing water levels. BC Hydro’s capacity is about 11,000 megawatts.
To be continued.
On this Day: January 15th 1892
James Naismith publishes the rules to Basketball.
Gasoline at the local Petro Canada are under a dollar a liter. 98 cents are a lot better but not as good as prices under 80 cents in some prairie provinces.
Average price in the province at this 112.4 lowest 94.9 trending higher: http://www.gasbuddy.com/
on this Day: December 18th 1932
The Chicago Bears defeat the Portsmouth Spartans in the first NFL championship game.
Pipe for oil field File:Photo KDG Will they be the bad guy from Paris?
The Paris meetings have recently affirmed that there is will to change , what is different about this international meeting and others is this;usually the bureaucrats have already done the work for agreements or treaties and the elected are there to announce and confer as well as associate with others that have the confidence of the electorate. This time their is a 90 day time limit for conferring with officials after the fact. The cabinet must take their pledges to the ministries in there nations and come up with plans. Here is some of the alternate methods that BC hydro is adopting in response to the markets here already.
Electricity from independent producers must also be clean and renewable. Projects currently generating electricity for B.C. are found throughout the province, and include: ( BC Hydro)
Biomass: electricity is generated either by burning or by converting biomass to a fuel, which is then used to generate power
Run-of-river: the current of a river is used to generate electricity
Solar: energy from the sun’s rays are converted to electricity using photovoltaic cells
Municipal solid waste: combustion or gasification of waste to generate electricity
Waste heat: when heat is generated as a byproduct of other processes, it can be used to generate electricity
Merritt is in the middle of a green energy project now, how this relates to Paris is unknown however it is always desirable for incoming governments to privatize. ( or in this case create new business) . Hydro says they have 100 projects on the go with the above elements.
Editors note: We think the first method of international agreements is preferable to the Paris format. Less surprises over all. That said it was nice to see all those getting along so well in a troubled world. We hope it sticks.
On this day December 4th 1875
Boss Tweed a New York crooked politician escapes prison later recaptured in Spain.
Tonight there will be the annual Christmas parade in Merritt, the parade will start off the Christmas shopping season and will have a midnight madness open shops after the parade.
Merritt BC is a community of 8000 people in the South Central Interior of British Columbia Canada. Its Chamber of Commerce has had a number of themes over the decades including, A lake a day as long as you stay,The Copper Capital of Canada, The Hub of the Coquihalla Highway System and its most recent The Country Music Capital of Canada. It has the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in the 2000 Block of Quilchena avenue and is the bedroom community of the Douglas Lake Cattle Company, it is also the home of NVIT, a local Community College started by its First Nations citizens over 30 years ago. Merritt’s parade will reflect a lot of that flavor.
Community parade as part of the Country Christmas week to help kick off the festive season.
Parade starts at the Civic Center goes down Chapman Street to Quilchena Avenue, down Quilchena Avenue to Charters Street, down Charters Street to Coutlee Avenue, down Coutlee Avenue to Garcia Street where the parade ends.
Kevin Griffiths
percypaschal
The Proprietor Review 