Another year has come and gone, and in Forest Crowne things were fairly slow again. Which is just fine with me.
As with all things out here, things don’t happen fast. I reported in late January, that the street lights were being turned on between the 100 block and 300 block of Forest Crowne Close. This story was based on me talking to the electricians that were here working on them that day. Well… after a couple more letters to City Council, they were actually turned on in October.
Early in the year there was a fair bit of work done in the “back 40″ of Forest Crowne. The roads were plowed most of last winter for access. Anderson Contracting burned the huge piles of decked logs and slash piles from the most recent Teck logging of Forest Crowne. Mark McKinlay pulled out dozens of standing dead larch for firewood over the winter. In the spring someone came in with a trackhoe and dug drainage ditches across some roads. These disturbances were later seeded.
The taxpayers of Kimberley bought us a new water main!! 
The rusty water was always an issue up here, and this new water main has fixed that problem. Here we were living in a brand new community, with a rusted out old water main running to us. Talk about a municipality being friendly to a developer. Oh well, at least now the toilet water changes color when I take a wee.
We did community clean up again last year. There is not much garbage around here, but it is a great community event. We had 17 people come out to help. Next year I would like to combine this clean up with a work party to fix up one of our boulevards.
Last year I initiated a Forest Crowne naturalists outing. We had a number of great outings, but it fizzled over time. This year I will start earlier to get out to see the flowers on Sunflower Hill and then have it not quite as often.
Tyee Custom Homes has built a show home in the Cottages last year. They started in July and are still working on it. I think it is one of these “Kimberley Time” things.
The turn lane off the highway got paved this year.
The elk’s antlers turned up in the back of some abandoned car in Meadowbrook.
Finally, there were six houses started over the year. We now have 125 houses on 203 lots.
Over the next year, I will continue to post articles about what is happening out here. I hope people have a healthy and fulfilling 2012.
