In a public open house Tuesday night at the Community Forum, the city unveiled its 2016 budget and five-year financial plan. City Director of Finance Andre Buss offered a presentation describing the city's three strategic priorities: Infrastructure Management and the maintenance of municipal infrastructure; the development ...

Castlegar city council unveiled its proposed 2016 budget and five-year financial plan at a public open house Tuesday evening, in what proved to be one of the best-attended budget consultations in years. Councillor and Finance Committee chair Dan Rye said this year’s budget, reaching almost $27 million (roughly $12.7 million for operations and $14.2 for […]

A Trail fugitive is back in police custody after a collaborative effort between BC and Alberta police resulted in him being arrested in Calgary March 30, acccording to Trail RCMP Cpl. Mike Wicentowich. An extensive manhunt, including massive social media outreach was launched to find Joel Andrew Hutchinson, 30, after he failed...

An additional 73 substance use treatment beds are on their way to communities throughout Interior Health (IH). The new beds are part of IH’s plan to meet the Province’s 500 Substance Use Spaces Initiative and will support and enhance existing substance use treatment services across IH. “These new beds for Interior Health are...

Honourable Minister McCallum, The West Kootenay Friends of Refugees agreed to sponsor a Syrian family of four, through the BVOR program, on Jan.6/16.  As you are probably well aware, this is an exciting commitment for dozens of people in any sponsoring community.  We have spent countless hours fundraising and preparing the community of Rossland BC to welcome this […]

The West Kootenay region experienced record-breaking high temperatures in spring and summer 2015. By early July, wild fires burned at Nelson’s doorstep, and the city was on Stage 4 water restrictions for two months. Outside Nelson, rural residents, dependent on surface water, continued to see lower water levels in the streams they rely on for […]

Camera buffs have a few weeks to collect those award winning photos for entry into the West Kootenay Camera Club Photo contest. Deadline for entries is (Saturday) April 23 at 4 p.m. Entries can be submitted to:  Kel Print in Castlegar, Doell Photography in Trail, or Vogue Photography in Nelson.  Photographer Jim Lawrence of...

A trio of regional science enthusiasts are ready to travel to Quebec to represent the region following a successful showing at the West Kootenay Boundary Science Fair Saturday at L.V. Rogers high school in Nelson. Joining Dylan Peil of LVR, who now has qualified three times to attend the Canada-wide Science Fair, are the...

The board of directors of the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary (RDKB) has directed staff to close the Reuse Centres at RDKB landfills. The Reuse Centres which have been in place at McKelvey Creek (Trail), Grand Forks and West Boundary (Greenwood) landfills will shut down on April 9th .   “When we introduced the Reuse ...

There was plenty of precipitation, but not much accumulation of snow at the higher elevations said Ron Lakeman, Weather Forecaster for the Southeast Fire Centre in his monthly weather release. "As is typical of a late winter-spring El Nino, March of 2016 was mild and very wet,'' Lakeman said. "The mean monthly temperature was...