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For earlier materials see Table of Contents

December 6^th	New City Council
	Inaugural meeting

A new era in City politics? --- I believe a ‘Revolution’ has taken place

· A revolution took place?

· Climate Change Adaptation mtg

· Good fences make—

· Haze as in wood smoke

Usually these things are an opportunity for a photo op and little else But there were signs of a true revolution taking place--- Mussallem’s self proclaimed leadership ‘ignored’

Here is the revolution --- the self-proclaimed leader may have lost his ‘followers’

Last term Mayor Mussallem and Councillor Nelson Kinney were the City reps to the SQCRD ----Monday Anna Ashley nominated Nelson Kinney – and after some procedure back and forth Council agreed to make the appointments one at a time --- Nelson was elected, then he in turn nominated Anna Ashley ---- again procedural discussion – with Mussallem putting in how he had ‘re-organized’ SQCRD in past, etc --- but the vote was taken 4-3 --- so Anna Ashley became the 2^nd City rep to SQCRD. I suggest this hints at significant change in direction for City Council in future --- A new day may well be dawning

New face – Jennifer Rice – and she left her mark on first meeting
	While probably having first time jitters – she had read the full agenda package --- and noted that for the Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) the City had the option of appointing an alternate too, if the Council so wished. Gina Garon was appointed and Carlick -Pearson appointed the alternate

	Conference at Casino
	Climate Change Adaptation for Northwest Skeena See http://brinkmanforest.com/ffesc/project-details/ --- for online material --- more available later on that site

	Sociological surveys of what the local communities (Rupert, Lax Kw’alaams, and Terrace) believed the major threats of climate change would be in Skeena River watershed
	The December 5^th all day meeting at the Casino was a chance to ‘report’ back to community on both the science works done – and the synthesis of community inputs to this point --- image left from a slide at presentation – where community concerns visualized as a graph—thus salmon of highest concern and perceived to be most threatened by climate change -- more later

	Models used to predict the implications climate change for forest ecosystems
	As can be seen from this model projection (taken form the excellent update newsletter on Brinkman site) a warmer, drier scenario for the Skeena River watershed will have profound implications for the higher altitude forests over time --- more later

	Good fences good neighbors make – continued
	We see that McDonald’s and the adjoining property owner seem to have found a workable arrangement dealing with their fence – see my previous --- As can be seen in upper image a number of the decaying panels have been replaced --- I saw the repairs being done from the Motel side of the fence – but that signifies little as that is the way the fence was originally constructed

Haze in winter

It is never ‘obvious’ what is causing a localized ‘haze’ --- as image left --- could be just some drifting fog – or it could be a wood burning stove where wood not properly dried --- while ‘inversions’ not common in Rupert --- the small particulate matter in improperly cured wood is not a trivial matter – community health could be put in jeopardy – unfortunately very hard to enforce any rules ---See previous on winter smoke – burning – or wood stoves

	Public or private
	I reported the water leak on left weeks ago –hard to tell by just looking if it is on City of resident side of the fresh water pipe --- either way slow leak of $$$ --- and no one seems to be doing anything – the landowner should be given a few weeks to fix and then the city make the repairs and charge them – more later – but see truck caused leak on 3^rd Avenue (image right and my previous) – which is still there couple weeks later

	After the Council meeting there were ‘refreshments’
	I asked about the swearing in – no big deal – a paper was passed around by the Mayor before the meeting with a ‘pledge’ and a place to sign I was told

More on Council and Climate Change Adaptation meetings later in week

Created by LG on 6/12/2011

Last updated on Tuesday, December 06, 2011