City council had no public opposition to its plan to borrow $2.42 million to install a methane gas collection system at the Mission Flats landfill.

The City is required to allow time for an alternative approval process, should there be residents who want to collect signatures against the borrowing bylaw. That occurred a year ago when council looked at building a parkade on the Heritage House parking lot at Riverside Park.

But in this case, there was no opposition and the borrowing bylaw was adopted.

New tax exemptions approved for non-profits

City council granted some new property tax exemptions for non-profit groups Tuesday.

Those approvals included The Land Conservancy of B.C., which has 2.6 hectares of undeveloped property along Tod Road in Barnhartvale.

The Men's Christian Hostel building on West Victoria Street, which has changed hands to the Canadian Mental Health Association, was already exempt. But new ownership means the non-profit has to start from square one, getting one-third of its taxes exempted this year, two-thirds next year and then 100 per cent in the third year.

The Elks with their new lodge location on Victoria Street are also starting with the one-third exemption this year because they moved to a new space.

Roads get rehab

City council approved a $1.446-million contract Tuesday for B.A. Dawson Blacktop to fix four stretches of road.

The contract also calls for the replacement of sanitary, storm and water pipes, as well as utility repairs.

City utilities director David Duckworth said the work on Victoria Street between First and Fifth avenues will be done at non-peak periods of the day to try to minimize disruption to area businesses.

The other four streets involved are Summit between Columbia and Springhill, Oriole Road from Frontage Road to Valleyview Drive and Nicola Street from Fifth to Sixth avenues.

Be cool, be randomly kind

Get your kindness on, Kamloops.

City council proclaimed Oct. 1 to 6 as Cool to be Kind Week.

Idris Marican, program co-ordinator with Interior Community Services, told council Tuesday the week-long event is aimed at getting people to do random acts of kindness and pay forward nice things that happen to them.

His agency will be collecting donations of winter clothing at the office at 396 Tranquille Road, or people can call first to 554-3134.

Put violence away, at least for a week

October 15 to 21 is the YM-YWCA's Week Without Violence in Kamloops.

It coincides with the Power of Being a Girl event that gathers more than 100 girls from ages 12 to 14 to learn about their abilities and strengths.

Three girls from the event's planning group, Maia Walker, Surbhi Spolia and Katie Smoluk, told council the Week Without Violence is marked in more than 90 countries. They asked councillors to imagine women walking at night without fear, and a community without bullying or abuse.

The Power of Being a Girl is set for Oct. 17. It's free, but it fills up fast, so any interested girls should register at the Y.

Donations are accepted to go toward the cost of the conference.

Be abreast of cancer awareness

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Kamloops.

Council made the proclamation Tuesday.

The month is kicked off early, on Sept. 30, with the CIBC Run for the Cure.

Organizers Starr Webb and Margaret Webber invited council to Riverside Park for the run, which is expected to attract at least 1,300 participants this year.

They also had some alarming statistics. This year, 22,700 women in Canada will be diagnosed with breast cancer and it will kill 5,100 of them.

In B.C., 630 women and 55 men will die from breast cancer this year.

Kamloops asks feds for funding plan

City council voted unanimously Tuesday to endorse a campaign by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to call for a long-term federal plan for municipal infrastructure funding.

Coun. Nancy Bepple, who sits on a few FCM committees, said the current funding for municipal funds expires soon.

"The federal government has agreed to implement a new funding arrangement for the infrasctructure funding plan. The FCM wants to make sure it meets municipalities' needs for how it's distributed and funded and that there's enough money," she said.

Singh wants to start early on keeping tax hike low

Coun. Arjun Singh asked his council colleagues to support a motion for a workshop in the latter part of 2012 to look at keeping next year's tax increase at zero per cent.

But when it was pointed out to him that with inflation and other factors, that might not be possible, he rejigged his motion to simply keeping the tax increase low.

City administrator David Trawin said the City is having its purchasing processes audited, and is starting capital budgets at zero for this year.

But there are bound to be things that prevent zero from happening, he cautioned.

'We're going to try to get as close to zero as we can," he said.

Singh said he wasn't stuck on the zero number, but wanted to discuss the budget and accountability earlier in the process. Council agreed to try to hold the workshop on a morning in November.