Finding love on choppy waters isn’t always that easy, but with Valentine's Day in the next couple of months, there’s a great opportunity to find your forever first mate. Hullo and the Vancouver Island Ferry Company are here to help with that. Applications are now open for Hullo’s High-Speed Speed Dating event. Hullo, the same company that brought you the 70-minute ferry from downtown Nanaimo straight to downtown Vancouver, is now bringing you a speed dating event to help you set sail on both the...
Dec 28, 2023•5 min
Winter holidays bring good times, celebrations and parties. But winter holidays also bring an increased amount of impaired drivers to the roads. Although it gets said over and over to not drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, MAAD Canada says in British Columbia an average of seven people die at the hands of impaired drivers during the holiday season. It’s during this time that drivers might see an increase in police presence. Media Relations Officer for the Nanaimo RCMP Constable...
Dec 22, 2023•4 min
Nanaimo homeowners are looking at an eight per cent property tax hike after council passed the provisional financial plan. This will bring property taxes for the average home in Nanaimo to $2,860 next year. Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog says that the city is growing, putting an increased demand on the city services, and council did what it could to control the tax increase. “I appreciate that nobody wants to pay more. But having said that, we all want to need our services," he said. "Imagine a city...
Dec 22, 2023•4 min
Construction has started on a new 47 bed housing facility for women and children facing gender-based violence in Nanaimo. The four-storey, wood-frame building will provide 30 self-contained second-stage housing units with their own bathroom and kitchen, as well as 10 rooms with a total of 17 transition beds for short-term stays. Three second-stage housing units and one transition room will be wheelchair accessible. The housing will be operated by Haven Society, which supports adults and children...
Dec 21, 2023•4 min
Finding love on choppy waters isn’t always that easy, but with Valentine's Day in the next couple of months, there’s a great opportunity to find your forever first mate. Hullo and the Vancouver Island Ferry Company are here to help with that. Applications are now open for Hullo’s High-Speed Speed Dating event. Hullo, the same company that brought you the 70-minute ferry from downtown Nanaimo straight to downtown Vancouver, is now bringing you a speed dating event to help you set sail on both the...
Dec 21, 2023•4 min
Nanaimo city council voted 8-1 on Monday to not build affordable housing on any portion of the Five Acres Farm at 933 Park Ave. The city bought the land in 2019 to both protect the farm from development as well as a site for housing on part of the property. Nanaimo Foodshare currently operates a community garden on the property and the former farmhouse is rented by tenants, but the plan is to demolish the house as maintenance and renovation costs are expected to exceed rent revenue, according to...
Dec 20, 2023•4 min
Nanaimo City Council on Monday voted to amend the service agreement for the Downtown Vandalism Relief Grant program. Businesses in the downtown area will now be able to apply more than twice a year and receive up to $2,500 per incident up to a maximum of $5,000 per year. This money may also include up to 50 per cent of the cost of installation of security and preventative measures to a maximum of $1,000. The program first started in December 2022, and as of September 2023, 25 applications have b...
Dec 20, 2023•5 min
Nanaimo City Council voted on Wednesday to increase the budget for the free shower program at Caledonia Park. Christy Wood, social planner for the City of Nanaimo, presented a report with five recommendations to council to review the current shower services and to provide options to expand, maintain or transition the current system. This comes after a regular council meeting in March 2023, when the Reaching Home Nanaimo Community Advisory Board sent a letter to council requesting them to conside...
Dec 16, 2023•5 min
Transit workers in Comox and Campbell River went on strike Friday morning citing wages as the key reason for the job action. While this shuts down public transportation for tens of thousands of people, the union and employer agreed to keep operating the HandyDART buses for people with disabilities. Unifor Western Regional Director Gavin McGarrigle says the three major stumbling blocks are the rate of pay for current employees, a proposal by the employer to pay new hires less, which he says will ...
Dec 15, 2023•3 min
A new mural at the Nanaimo Aquatic Center showcases communities coming together and transitioning hate to hope. The British Columbia's Office of the Human Rights Commissioner showcased the mural on Thursday. This mural is one of four that were made around the province in response to the report from the Human Rights Commissioner titled “From Hate to Hope”. The report comes out of an inquiry into the rise of hate and violence that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic towards different groups of peopl...
Dec 15, 2023•5 min
Two additional city-funded warming centres will be opening in Nanaimo this month, one at the old Nanaimo Bakery on Bowen and Merrideth road operated by the Island Crisis Care Soceity, and the other at an old fire hall at 5 Victoria Road operated by the 7-10 Club. All together, the three warming centres will provide a place for 138 people to seek shelter from the elements this winter. Risebridge’s warming centre opened Nov. 14 and capacity for 48 people, while the Victoria Road location has capac...
Dec 15, 2023•5 min
A pond near Qualicum Beach Elementary is getting a new name after a local teacher wrote to the town council informing them that the students voted to name it Salamander Pond. Ashley Kuramoto is an outdoor education specialist at the school who often takes her class to the pond but never knew its name. Eventually she called the town to try and get to the bottom of it and was told it was Contaminant Pond. Aghast at the name, Kuramoto asked her students what they thought the pond should be called. ...
Dec 13, 2023•3 min
Santa Claus was spotted flying over Nanaimo early Tuesday morning, but left his sleigh at home instead opting for a flight in an air ambulance helicopter that landed at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Santa was there to visit sick children in the hospital’s paediatric unit as well as five other hospitals on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. This is the 19th year that BC Emergency Health Services and Helijet have flown Santa to deliver toys to children during the holidays. One of the ch...
Dec 13, 2023•3 min
Recent figures show illicit drug poisonings attended by the BC Emergency Health Services in Nanaimo are more than double the per capita rate when compared to other communities within Island Health. In a presentation to Nanaimo City Council on Monday, Dr. Shannon Waters, current interim Medical Health Officer for the Nanaimo area, along with some of her colleagues, spoke about the current rise in toxic drugs around the city. Waters started off the presentation by speaking about her feelings about...
Dec 13, 2023•7 min
The Nanaimo Art Gallery is currently looking for a new place to call home. During a city council meeting on December 4th, the art gallery presented an update on the “Future Gallery” project’s next steps. The project directly follows a feasibility study completed with the gallery, Nordicity and Iredale Architecture in 2022. Currently housed in an old bank building which was built in the 1960s, the gallery has faced problems such as a lack of indoor and outdoor space, tight quarters to load and un...
Dec 09, 2023•6 min
Nanaimo’s Jewish community marked the first night of Chanukah with the lighting of a giant Menorah at Maffeo Sutton Park. Organized by Chabad of Nanaimo the event attracted hundreds of people to mark the start of the holiday celebrating the triumph of light over darkness. Rabbi Bentzi Shemtov says that the public celebration of Chanukah is important for the community. “The holiday is all about light, freedom,” he said. “That's what we celebrate on this holiday, the holiday of freedom over li...
Dec 08, 2023•5 min
Island Health is ramping up its Covid and Influenza vaccine campaign with free walk-in clinics for children between six months and 11 years of age. Dr. Charuka Maheswaran, a public health resident physican at Island Health, says that it is especially important that children get their flu shot this year. “Last year, we saw more children hospitalized with influenza than usual and we don't want that again this year,” she said. According to the BC Centre for Disease Control’s most recent report, inf...
Dec 08, 2023•3 min
Vancouver Island Univerisity gathered to remember the worst act of violent misogyny in Canadian history. It has been over 30 years since the École Polytechnique Montreal massacre that took the lives of 14 women on December 6th 1989. The day is a part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign which begins November 25, the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women and goes until December 10th, World Human Rights Day. The vigil at VIU had speakers, poets, a...
Dec 08, 2023•4 min
Over the last week, the Nanaimo City Council has had the chance to discuss next year’s financial plan and on Monday Dember 4th, residents finally had their chance to speak. An E-town hall was held to present the draft financial plan and allow the city council to hear feedback from city residents. In the beginning, the audience was given an overview of what the drafted plan currently looks like. The audience gasped at the new projected 8 per cent property tax hike discussed at last Friday’s finan...
Dec 07, 2023•6 min
Nanaimo city council voted 7-2 to redo an Alternative Approval Process to take out a $48.5 million loan for a new public works yard in Nanaimo after the previous one run in November was found to have been done without giving proper notice. ★ Support this podcast ★
Dec 06, 2023•5 min
The City of Nanaimo is looking at increasing property taxes by eight per cent in 2024 as of Friday’s finance and audit committee meeting. ★ Support this podcast ★
Dec 04, 2023•4 min
Construction is near completion for phase two of the Albert / Fourth Complete Street project. Soon pedestrians, cyclists and drivers will have an easier and safer route between downtown and the Harewood area. Support local news reporting through our Nonprofit Newsroom with a monthly sustaining donation of $5 to $10 a month . Want more news on the Salish Sea? Find more news from our Nonprofit Newsroom with our local news updates and Midcoast Morning . ★ Support this podcast ★...
Dec 02, 2023•3 min
Exciting news has come out of the Qualicum First Nations as the once-considered ‘sleeping language’ has successfully been labelled as an awakening language. The pentl’ach (pronounced punt-lutch) language which was traditionally spoken in what is now Cape Lazo to Parksville and a little bit west of the areas, has officially become the 35th First Nations language recognized in British Columbia. pentl’ach became labelled as a sleeping language when the last known fluent speaker passed away in the 1...
Dec 01, 2023•5 min
A controversial Alternative Approval Process (AAP) to take out a $48.5 million loan for the first phase of a new public works yard was conducted improperly and needs to be run again, according to a press release from the City of Nanaimo. An “administrative error” resulted when the notices for the AAP were combined and the timing of the notices “did not meet the legislative requirements,” according to a city staff report. A total of 3,058 forms to the original AAP were returned to city hall by th...
Dec 01, 2023•4 min
The Downtown Revitalization Tax Exemption applies to new multi-family residential and commercial buildings as well as renovations within the revitalization area spanning from the waterfront to Pine Street and the Millstone River. The exemption provides a ten‐year tax exemption on the municipal portion of property taxes within the revitalization area. Currently a new building must have a building permit value of at least $500,000 and multi-family residential buildings must have four or more units...
Nov 30, 2023•4 min
The coastline is going to get a whole lot cleaner with the province announcing a new round of funding for coastal clean-up projects. Through the Clean Coast, Clean Waters initiative, eight projects were selected this year and are expected to clean more than 1,400 kilometres of shoreline and remove at least 70 derelict vessels. This funding is expected to create 630 new jobs in the process. ★ Support this podcast ★
Nov 29, 2023•5 min
Nanaimo residents could see a possible 6.4 per cent increase in property tax next year. Last Wednesday, November 22nd, Nanaimo city council discussed a draft of the 2024-2028 financial plan. ★ Support this podcast ★
Nov 28, 2023•3 min
Parksville city council heard from residents at a packed public hearing about the proposed location of a new mental health and/or addictions treatment facility at 188 McCarter Street on Wednesday. ★ Support this podcast ★
Nov 25, 2023•5 min
A bylaw by the Regional District of Nanaimo to establish a community health and wellbeing service for Gabriola Island is going to an Alternative Approval Process to get the consent of Gabriolans to fund the estimated $103,000 needed to hire a full-time coordinator. ★ Support this podcast ★
Nov 24, 2023•5 min
Nanaimo City Council voted in favour of a motion to send a letter to all BC MLAs and the UBCM in support of a draft amendment they would like to see towards the recently announced Bill 44 ★ Support this podcast ★
Nov 23, 2023•3 min
