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Oak Bay's crumbling infrastructure


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#1 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 06:31 AM

http://www.timescolo...ipes-1.14657215

 

I think it's a wonderful opportunity to be innovative.  

 

A separate analysis of municipal buildings, commissioned in 2015, recommends several be replaced over the next five years, including the police, fire and public works buildings, municipal hall and library — all of which are functionally inadequate and seismically vulnerable.

 

“Replacing these buildings is clearly not a viable option within the next five years,” Horan says in his report. “A robust operational and capital business plan that ties assets with expected funding is required.”

 

Horan notes that Oak Bay’s revenue “is insufficient for long-term sustainability.”

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.Nn1h0GCZ.dpuf

 

Can Oak Bay and Victoria share a fire hall?  A library?  Surely they could share a library.

 

Can Oak Bay build any of those building with shared residential to save money?

 

Can Oak Bay run fresh water, sparkling water, gin and cabernet lines since they are digging up anyway?


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<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#2 Jill

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 07:36 AM

I think having a library downtown is important for a city, and branch libraries are important, too, so if your suggestion is that a single library replace both the downtown and Oak Bay branches, then no, they can't share a library.


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#3 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 07:39 AM

I think having a library downtown is important for a city, and branch libraries are important, too, so if your suggestion is that a single library replace both the downtown and Oak Bay branches, then no, they can't share a library.

 

No, that was not going to be my suggestion.   


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#4 Jill

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 07:54 AM

Well, then, YES!


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#5 rjag

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 08:47 AM

Its really sad that the core job of an elected Councillor and Mayor is infrastructure, pipes roads and buildings. Here is a great example of deferred planning and its going to catch up to them. The Mayor has been on council for many years as have other members, there is no excuse except the desire to spend money on frivolous issues or not at all.

 

The Uplands sewage separation issue has been recognized for at least the last 15+ years if not longer and ignored for just as long. Instead of creating a 10-20 year plan to work on say 5-10% of it each year they simply do nothing and the costs arent decreasing.

 

Roads and pipes always take a backseat to issues beyond the purview of their mandate. The firehall and police building have been discussed since at least the mid-90's as I remember it was a topic of discussion when I was active in Disaster and Business Continuation planning with Muni's and the Province. One location was the parking lot between OB rec and the Coast Capital building. Another location was OB high school and the best was to revamp the public works yard completely and combine it with the rec centre parking lot behind the tennis bubble. Unfortunately the appetite to spend the money clashed with the lack of vision and the fact that any project would not be completed within a municipal election cycle.....

 

And for the most part ignorant taxpayers don't seem to care 



#6 johnk

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 10:42 AM

Politicians have no great affection for stuff like pipes and sewers. They aren't visible thus easier left to erode. And your local pol(s) won't get brownie points for bragging about the spiffy new poop pipe that got installed.
But they do like visible fake green stuff such as an EV charger, a public composter drum or bike paths that end abruptly.

Edited by johnk, 09 April 2017 - 10:44 AM.

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#7 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 10:56 AM

I voted not to amalgamate Oak Bay last time, can't say I would do the same next time.



#8 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 10:56 AM

They can't even get wood chips on the trails in Uplands Park (trails keep on getting wider as people walk to the sides out of the ruts).


Edited by todd, 09 April 2017 - 10:57 AM.

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#9 johnk

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 11:47 AM

They can't even get wood chips on the trails in Uplands Park (trails keep on getting wider as people walk to the sides out of the ruts).[/size]


And whatever happened to the vacant municipality-owned house they were going to provide for a refugee family? That was at least 7 or 8 months ago. Volunteer trades could have had it ready inside a month but the lights aren't on yet. A seriously decision-averse council.

#10 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 11:50 AM

And whatever happened to the vacant municipality-owned house they were going to provide for a refugee family? That was at least 7 or 8 months ago. Volunteer trades could have had it ready inside a month but the lights aren't on yet. A seriously decision-averse council.

 

http://www.oakbaynew...ire-road-house/


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#11 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 11:56 AM

And whatever happened to the vacant municipality-owned house they were going to provide for a refugee family? That was at least 7 or 8 months ago. Volunteer trades could have had it ready inside a month but the lights aren't on yet. A seriously decision-averse council.

That would be nice maybe for a time(or somewhere in the municipality), I would rather(or at least eventually) see it torn down and made into a parking lot for Oak Bay Avenue as was the original plan.



#12 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 02:50 PM

http://www.timescolo...ipes-1.14657215

 

I think it's a wonderful opportunity to be innovative.  

 

- See more at: http://www.timescolo...h.Nn1h0GCZ.dpuf

 

Can Oak Bay and Victoria share a fire hall?  A library?  Surely they could share a library.

 

Can Oak Bay build any of those building with shared residential to save money?

 

Can Oak Bay run fresh water, sparkling water, gin and cabernet lines since they are digging up anyway?

 

Think at the very least you're still going to need a fire hall in oak bay. Wasn't it upgraded not that long ago? http://www.firehall....read.php?t=1176

 

 

 

 

Can Oak Bay run fresh water, sparkling water, gin and cabernet lines since they are digging up anyway?

They haven't told you?


Edited by todd, 09 April 2017 - 02:53 PM.


#13 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:05 PM

Think at the very least you're still going to need a fire hall in oak bay. Wasn't it upgraded not that long ago? http://www.firehall....read.php?t=1176

 

 

 

 

It's time for us to re-think this.

 

It's arguably the best known, least acknowledged and most inconvenient truth in local government: "Fire departments" -- in the precise meaning of that label -- no longer exist anywhere in America.

 

Thousands of official entities bear this or a similar moniker. But given what they and their employees actually do, "Emergency Medical, Incident Response and Every-Once-in-a-While-an-Actual-Fire Department" would be far more accurate.

 

In 1980, according to the National Fire Protection Association, the nation's 30,000 fire departments responded to 10.8 million emergency calls. About 3 million were classified as fires. By 2013, total calls had nearly tripled to 31.6 million, while fire calls had plummeted to 1.24 million, of which just 500,000 of were actual structure fires. For America's 1.14 million career and volunteer firefighters, that works out to an average of just one structure fire every other year.

 

 

http://www.governing...l-services.html

 

 

In my own community of Portland, Ore., the Fire and Rescue department's 500-plus full-time fire professionals respond to more than 70,000 911 calls each year. About 70 percent are medical calls, a typical proportion for most jurisdictions. Just 700 annual calls involve burning buildings.

 

 

In Portland, San Francisco, and many other communities, the typical 911 call results in the dispatch of both a fire truck and an ambulance. The result is an increasingly familiar tableau: Five or six gear-laden firefighters and/or ambulance personnel arriving on the scene, regardless of whether there's a fire, stroke, or a heart attack in progress -- or a passed-out homeless person on the sidewalk, or a motorist slightly dazed in a fender bender. (While cat-in-tree rescues are more urban myth than reality, they still happen.).

 

Fire officials vehemently defend their existing protocols. Firefighters, they say, need the extra time to suit up and board big rigs in case they must re-deploy to a real fire during a medical call. And they note that firefighters often save lives when they arrive first on the scene.

 


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#14 57WestHills

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:12 PM

Oak Bay's Fire and Police Departments are wound so closely to Saanich that I hardly understand why the municipality is willing to shoulder the costs to stay independent. And all Pound services are provided by Saanich.

Saanich also has crumbling municipal infrastructure for emergency services. I know it would never happen but wouldn't this be a great opportunity to start consolidating some infrastructure?
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#15 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:14 PM

Yes, it would be.  Saanich's McKenzie fire hall is already closer to most of north Oak Bay.


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#16 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:24 PM

Yes, it would be.  Saanich's McKenzie fire hall is already closer to most of north Oak Bay.

 

What are we going to do about South Oak Bay?



#17 57WestHills

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:27 PM

Drive? I'm just joking I'm pretty ignorant of Oak Bay's infastrustrure - but is two fire halls a necessity? What's the driving time between North & South Oak Bay?

#18 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:27 PM

What are we going to do about South Oak Bay?

 

Build the joint OB/Vic dept (replaces Yates) on Oak Bay Avenue on the Victoria side.  With apartment rental units above.


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<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#19 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:29 PM

Drive? I'm just joking I'm pretty ignorant of Oak Bay's infastrustrure - but is two fire halls a necessity? What's the driving time between North & South Oak Bay?

 

It's not really that relevant anymore.  As I've indicated, fires are becoming more and more rare, and safety/alarm/suppression systems are getting better.  If the drive time is an 8 extra minutes, you might save one life every 10 or 15 years.  It's not worth it.


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#20 todd

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Posted 09 April 2017 - 03:41 PM

Build the joint OB/Vic dept (replaces Yates) on Oak Bay Avenue on the Victoria side.  With apartment rental units above.

Only work if you put it in all three municipalities.

 

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