Tuesday - April 15, 2025 - Agassiz raises $500,000 for pool

⛅ High 17C

Good morning!

You needn’t have worried. I did not run out of books on my train trip to Toronto. And even if I had, apparently VIA Rail keeps a few stacks of old forgotten novels in various places on the train so I would have been covered regardless.

It was lovely to have some time away from my desk and responsibilities, and I am now geared up to get back into reporting. With the federal election less than two weeks away, both Tyler and I are going to have a lot on our plates.

If any Insiders are interested in hearing more about my train trip and seeing a couple poor quality videos of the valley via train, let me know! I might be able to steal the weekend edition away from Tyler to share some of my thoughts on the Fraser Valley as seen by rail.

– Grace

Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope 

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

News

UFV courses return to Hope

Hope students may have a couple more options come the fall.

The University of the Fraser Valley is expected to restart programming at the Hope Centre in September, nearly one year after the death of a staff member forced the university to pause instruction.

• Today, Josh shares UFV’s plans for the university’s Eastern Fraser Valley campus.

Related

Need to Know

🚚 An impaired dump truck driver was driven home by his wife after being stopped by police near Popkum last week; the truck has been impounded [CityNews]

✉ Langley Township is now billing separately for utility fees and property taxes, confusing some homeowners [Langley Advance Times]

🚓 RCMP officers arrested a helmetless moped driver who was carrying drugs—and a handgun with a silencer [Mission Record]

🚨 An American drove through the Huntingdon border crossing without stopping but was busted shortly afterwards [Fraser Valley Today]

📽 The Happy Face Killer, a former Chilliwack-resident-turned-American-serial-killer, will be the subject of a new true crime drama [Vancouver Sun]

🚂 Mountain Valley Express asked Langley Township to endorse its valley-wide rail proposal last week [Langley Advance Times]

🗳 Election 2025

The federal election campaign continues until election day on Monday, April 28. Advance voting will take place this weekend, from Friday, April 18 to Monday, April 21. Find everything you need to know—including where to vote—by visiting one of our local election hubs:

Chilliwack & the Eastern Fraser Valley | Abbotsford & Mission | Langley

The latest

👉 The Cloverdale District Chamber of Commerce hosts its all-candidates meeting for Cloverdale-Langley City tomorrow from 6:30 to 8pm; admission is free, but seating is limited [Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce]

👉 PPC leader Maxime Bernier toured the Fraser Valley over the weekend, stopping in Langley and Chilliwack [Langley Advance Times/Chilliwack Progress]

👉 NDP Chilliwack-Hope candidate Teri Westerby had his signs defaced with homophobic slurs over the weekend [Hope Standard]

👉 NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has pledged to hire 35,000 nurses by 2030 if elected, despite health care being a provincial responsibility [Global]

👉 Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he would use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the charter and ensure multiple-murderers die in jail [CBC]

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The Agenda

Kent residents, businesses raise $500,000 for new pool

Residents and businesses in the District of Kent have raised half-a-million dollars for the region’s new indoor pool.

The Lets’emot Regional Aquatic Centre is currently under construction next to the Community Recreation and Cultural Centre in Agassiz. The indoor pool is set to cost around $24.5 million to build, and will replace the area’s aging Ferny Coombe outdoor pool.

Earlier this year, the District of Kent passed the $500,000 mark in its fundraising efforts for the aquatic centre. The pool will be paid for by a combination of grants, community partnerships, loans, municipal reserve funds, and donations. (You can read more about the funding breakdown in our November 2024 story on the pool project.) The district has a community donation goal of $1 million, and has currently raised about half of that.

The biggest donors were local construction company Timbro Contracting, pipeline giant Enbridge, Marlon Recreation Products, and the Agassiz Fire Department Society. Local societies and individuals also contributed significant amounts of money. Individuals who gave less than a thousand dollars each towards the pool made up more than half of the donations.

Construction on the pool is still underway. As of early March, some structural components of the building were beginning to be put into place. The District of Kent hopes the pool will be open next spring.

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