Are Marmots cute or what?

On a cool, rainy day, what’s better than looking at a couple of pictures of things to come? These 2 Marmots were photographed by Pamela Kenny last summer.  She and her partner, Darrell Latimer, have purchased a property on the Raven Hill Road Extension.

Welcome to Pamela and Darrell!  …and to the 2 Marmots in the photos below.  I bet they’ve poked their heads out again this year.

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Update on fight against Fortis’ 2-Tier Rate System

Here’s an update on the 2-Tier system fight.  We now have 535 signatures on our petition but need to get many, many more.  It’s great though…people have been sharing and we have signatures from all over the province including the Island and far north as Horsefly.

We are very lucky to have hooked up with Nicholas Swart who is very knowledgeable and has been fighting the same battle in the Kelowna area.  We are now a team.

Nick Marty and Mark McKenney have been able to arrange a teleconference with Minister Bennett and MLA Linda Larson on April 14, 2015.  We are definitely getting their attention!

We’ve also had lots of signatures from BC Hydro customers because they face the same issues but their tiers are somewhat different.

Below is Nick’s update which is posted on our petition.  If you go the petition you will get links to his presentation as well as templates for letters you can sent to various government officials.

If you haven’t done so already, please consider signing the petition and forwarding it to others facing the same discrimination in BC.  http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bcuc-must-end-its-discriminatory-electricity-pricing-against-rural-customers.html  In order to make our petition viable, we need thousands of signatures.  I challenge each one of you to get 10 signatures and ask each of them to also ask for 10 more.

BC residents fought against the HST and won.  We can do this!

Recent local articles:

http://www.boundarycreektimes.com/news/297042701.html

http://www.osoyoostimes.com/energy-minister-to-hear-concerns-about-electricity-rates/

Should also be available Monday morning on: http://oliverdailynews.com/

Best regards,

Patti

UPDATE:

On February 2nd, 2015, Nicholas Swart of Kelowna met with MLAs Thomson and Letnick, as well as Ms. Becky Harmata, assistant to Premier Clark, to outline his concerns with the two-tier rate structure. He gave them a presentation explaining the flaws in the current two-tier rate structure. In his presentation he provided them with comparisons of actual Fortis bills that illustrated why the pricing structure is unfair. MLAs Thomson and Letnick indicated that they had received complaints from many other constituents on this matter over a long period, and that they would be meeting with Minister Bennett in the near future to discuss the issue with him.

On February 13, 2015, Nick Marty and Mark McKenney engaged in a telephone conference call with officials at the Ministry of Energy & Mines on the subject on unfair electricity rates.  Nick’s presentation to them is attached.can be viewed HERE  Further to this call, a telephone conference call with Minister Bennett and MLA Linda Larson has been scheduled for April 14, 2015.

On March 14, 2015 Nick and Mark met with residents of Midway, many of whom are suffering similar financial hardships as residents of rural Osoyoos as a result of discriminatory electricity pricing.  Nick took them through the presentation that he had previously made to the Ministry of Energy.

Between now and April 14th, it is important that residents continue to put pressure on the Government to revise the so-called Residential Conservation Rate which essentially “taxes” those residents who use electricity for space and water heating (primarily rural residents) with the proceeds being used to subsidize the electricity rates of those using natural gas to heat their homes.  This means signing or encouraging others, anywhere in the Province, to sign the petition at  http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/bcuc-must-end-its-discriminatory-electricity-pricing-against-rural-customers.html

Confusion around the new Telus Cell Tower

A couple of weeks ago I heard that the folks living on Raven were “Raving” about they’re new cell service and it was assumed that, as the Crow (or Raven) flies, it was due to the new, mammoth, Telus tower on Sasquatch.

It seems not.  Apparently, the tower was not active when the Raven residents began getting cell coverage but another hwy 3 tower to the east, recently activated, may be giving them some signals.  Again, this is just speculation because we can’t seem to get any official information from Telus.

Telus has kept the info around the status of the Anarchist Tower close to it’s chest.  Calling Telus or visiting the Telus Store in Oliver will give you no information on the status or planned activation of this tower.

Brian and Jean Ross, on BullMoose, have a “contact” with Telus and did some research and were told that the tower was just activated on Friday (2 days ago).  This is great news, but I need to “hear it” before I believe it, since we’ve been strung along for some time.

Many of us are poised and ready to change our cell plans but need confirmation of the Telus tower being active.  If you have any information around new or better signals, please leave a comment (at the bottom of this post).  FYI, I know for sure that Bell and K00do use the Telus towers, so we would like to hear anyone using Telus, Bell or Koodo.

Thanks on behalf of the community,

Patti

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Arbonne Party – Sat. Mar. 21 @ 7pm at Heather’s

Hello Everyone,

I am having an Arbonne Party:  Sat. Mar. 21, at 7:00pm @ 520 Raven Hill Rd.

It is PURE* SAFE* BENEFICIAL skin care products and also health item(vitamins, etc.)  The lady doing it is new to this area and asked if I would have a party so people will get to know her.  No pushy sales talk and she will do facials and hand scrubs for those who might want them.

If you are able to come out please let me know ASAP for numbers for refreshments at 250-495-4498 or send an email hhayward@telus.net   Make it a fun night out. Check out the attachments.

Thank-you,

Heather Hayward

Arbonne 1Arbonne 2