Friday, May 12, 2023 — Who gets to tell Yale's history?

Friday, May 12, 2023 | ☀ High 28C | Forecast

Good morning!

The Wire is generally considered one of the greatest TV shows ever produced. It ran for six seasons in the early 2000s on HBO and is basically a cops-and-crooks show while also covering other huge segments of society. (It’s on Crave—and on DVD at your local library.) My wife and I binged the show in 2008 and we loved it. It takes a while to get into it, but is riveting once you get a sense of the characters, the setting, and the very human world it presents.

I have never previously rewatched any TV series before, but I’m revisiting The Wire now and, if anything, it seems even more brilliant than on first viewing. It’s particularly effective in showing how vast and dysfunctional systems can stymie human ambitions, whether they be of police, drug dealers, dockworkers, or politicians. And it shows how decisions made by those same humans create those flawed systems in the first place. While BC is not Baltimore, the same paradoxical aspects of human society challenge us. Check it out.

Thanks to our new members Pat, Irene, Julia, Troy, Richard, and Robert. With your help, we’ve past 600 members! You can become an Insider Member and support our journalism here. In tomorrow’s members-only Saturday edition, I’ll be writing about how a complicated story like today’s feature is structured.

NEWS

Who gets to tell Yale’s history?

Rough metal tools that once slammed a railroad into the Fraser Canyon’s rock walls were packed into boxes. Square gold pans that once dug for treasure in streambeds joined them. Precious cedar baskets woven by Indigenous women were taken from their shelves, some to be returned to the families that loaned them.

Last month, every piece of Yale’s history that wasn’t nailed down was photographed, catalogued, wrapped, and stored.

The priceless pieces were on display at the Yale Historic Site, where they told tourists and students stories of the lives, cultures, gold, and war that shaped the province’s settlement.

The non-profit that ran the site was formed by locals to preserve the town’s history. It had to move out at the end of April. The site itself isn’t closing. It’s under new management.

• Today, Grace writes about a battle between local volunteers and the provincial government—with an ambitious newcomer caught in the middle—for the right to tell Yale’s history.

Need to know

🚔 A ‘serial groper’ may be haunting Langley [Langley Advance Times]

🌱 Jenny Stevens’ friends, family, constituents and colleagues gathered to plant a tree and remember the popular former Mission councillor [Mission Record]

👍 A new three-storey building opening in Abbotsford has 12 second-stage homes for women and children escaping domestic violence [BC Government]

🚗 A Chilliwack man received $1.5 million after being rear-ended on the Alex Fraser Bridge in 2015 [Chilliwack Progress]

👉 The owner of a Lindell Beach property should remove the thousands of tonnes of waste he has had dumped on his land, the FVRD staff say [Chilliwack Progress]

🚧 A southbound crash on the Coquihalla halted traffic for hours [Castanet]

🔎 An Abbotsford man was found safe after he went missing following a truck crash late Monday night on Sumas Mountain Road [Abbotsford News]

❎ Harrison Hot Spring’s mayor was the only local politician who opposed the inclusion of Tourism Harrison on the local emergency planning committee [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

⚖ A Chilliwack man shot by police in 2021 was sentenced for violently assaulting his wife [The Progress]

🚨 BC doctors say ERs not just in Langley but across the province are being ‘overrun with patients’ [CBC] / Have you waited long hours—or days—in an emergency room recently? Crowded emergency rooms are a perennial problem in the Fraser Valley and we want to hear from you; email us.

👉 If you’re looking for things to do on Mother’s Day, Tourism Abbotsford lists five good local ones [Tourism Abbotsford] / The Current has more in its members-only events section below [FVC]

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The Agenda

Most spray parks to be open for heat wave

Most spray parks across the Fraser Valley will be ready to help your kids stay cool ahead of the weekend heat wave.

Chilliwack and Langley Township spray parks opened earlier this week, while spray parks in Langley City and Abbotsford will be operational beginning Friday.

Chilliwack’s Central Community, Cheam Centre, and Landing spray parks will be switched on daily at 10am. The same goes for the City and Douglas parks in Langley City. The township’s Philip Jackman, Willoughby Community, and Walnut Grove spray park locations are also now open for the season. (Brookswood and Murrayville locations open May 21.)

In Abbotsford, spray parks are opening one week early in anticipation of the unseasonably hot weather forecasted for the weekend, a city spokesperson told The Current. The Mill Lake, Shadbolt and Spud Murphy locations will be open daily at 9am until the September long weekend.

Mission spray parks won’t open until May 19, after this weekend’s heat wave is expected to end. The city is still completing checks and repairs, a spokesperson told The Current.

Abbotsford may relax height cap on city centre apartments

Abbotsford may remove a height cap for some apartment buildings in the city’s core.

The city is creating a new zone for apartments in its central core that will allow for moderately larger structures than previously permitted. The new “city centre residential zone,” which is based on recommendations included in Abbotsford’s city centre neighbourhood plan, would allow for apartments taller than the six storeys currently permitted by its heavily used “midrise” zone.

The new zone wouldn’t create a high-rise free-for-all: a density limit would still be in place, though it would be 25% higher than the current floor-space-ratio cap.

Developers could still apply to use zones, or access density bonuses, that permit even larger buildings. But doing so requires builders—and the lots they own—to meet certain stricter requirements. The new city centre residential zone is likely to be more commonly used.

The plan to create the new zone was incorporated in a development application that will go to a public hearing in the weeks to come.

Bus union alleges ‘failure to bargain in good faith’

Lawyers for striking Fraser Valley transit workers say the private company contracted to run local buses actually encouraged employees to strike, saying that job action would be needed to pressure BC Transit to cover workers’ wage demands.

The company, First Transit, is paid by BC Transit to operate buses in the Fraser Valley. The employees are represented by their union, CUPE.

According to CUPE lawyers, First Transit originally suggested that it would be unable to pay market rates for workers’ services. But the union says that the company encouraged workers to strike, indicating that job action might get BC Transit to cover wage increases. Now, the union says the company has changed its position, saying its position has always been that it wasn’t willing to consider the union’s wage demands, not that it would be unable to fulfill them. The union says the change in position came after First Transit shared redacted financial information at a meeting last week.

The union says the shifting rationale amounts to a ‘failure to bargain in good faith’ and a breach of the BC Labour Code. The company says its position has not actually changed, according to the application.

You can read the union’s full application here; it includes the union’s version of events. The application was made on Tuesday and The Current received the application late Thursday evening. The Current has not seen any submission made by the company or been able to contact either party.

A hearing originally scheduled for next Tuesday between the two parties has been cancelled. That hearing was to consider picketing and good-faith allegations. First Transit has previously accused the union of ‘unlawful’ picketing.

The BC Labour Code requires both sides in a negotiation to “bargain in good faith,” meaning that parties need to actually be trying to reach an agreement. The union sought a day-long hearing at which it hopes for the board to both order the employer to bargain in good faith, and pay the union compensation.

Opposition bill suggests restarting HandyDart service during transit strike

BC United’s shadow transportation minister has introduced a private member’s bill that would see HandyDart vehicles deemed an essential service during the ongoing transit strike. (While some HandyDart trips are already considered essential, many are not.)

Opposition bills are almost never adopted as law, but are frequently used to promote a party’s ideas, gather media attention or put pressure on the government of the day.

The BC United HandyDart bill would be an “emergency measure” to help people with disabilities who are disproportionately impacted by the strike, shadow transportation minister MLA Trevor Halford said in a news release.

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