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Briefs from Svalbardposten for the week of Nov. 8, 2016

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Liberal Party seeking 10M kr. more for Longyearbyen
The Liberal Party is seeking 10 million kroner more for Longyearbyen in next year’s national budget than what the Conservative-led government is proposing. The city received an inflation-adjusted allocation of 151.3 million kroner in the proposed budget. Among the increases sought by the Liberal Party leaders are five-million kroner for “Arctic infrastructure measures” and 3.5 million kroner for “initiatives within the childhood sector.” Deputy Mayor Eirik Berger, who is the local Liberal Party leader, said the request shows the party takes Svalbard seriously. “That the Liberal Party is entering into negotiations with the government parties with the aim to increase the subsidy to Longyearbyen’s municipal government shows that the party is putting itself in the driver’s seat when it comes to Svalbard policy,” he said. “We have locally been consulted several times during the process and feel that we have been taken seriously during the year we have been in local government.” The party elected its first members to the Longyearbyen Community Council during last fall’s election and the three members were decisive in allowing the Labor Party to form a majority coalition.

Two power outages in past week – but not during storm
Longyearbyen suffered two power outages for different reasons during the past week but, despite concerns about heavy rain causing additional outages the lights stayed on during the deluge Monday night and Tuesday. The first outage occurred last Wednesday morning due to an error in a grid substation at Mine 7, according to Kim Rune Røkenes. the city’s chief engineer. “We have to replace the entire switchgear there,” he said. Power was restored about an hour later. The second outage occurred at about 8:30 a.m. Monday while city workers were preparing for the oncoming storm, Rokenes said. He said workers were working at a power subfacility at Vei 219 when an error in a switch caused a short. Power was restored about 30 minutes later. There were also two isolated outages at businesses during a heavy rainstorm in mid-October due to power supply cables coming loose, prompting warnings from the city.

 

About Post Author

Mark Sabbatini

I'm a professional transient living on a tiny Norwegian island next door to the North Pole, where once a week (or thereabouts) I pollute our extreme and pristine environment with paper fishwrappers decorated with seemingly random letters that would cause a thousand monkeys with a thousand typewriters to die of humiliation. Such is the wisdom one acquires after more than 25 years in the world's second-least-respected occupation, much of it roaming the seven continents in search of jazz, unrecognizable street food and escorts I f****d with by insisting they give me the platonic tours of their cities promised in their ads. But it turns out this tiny group of islands known as Svalbard is my True Love and, generous contributions from you willing, I'll keep littering until they dig my body out when my climate-change-deformed apartment collapses or they exile my penniless ass because I'm not even worthy of washing your dirty dishes.
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