Tuesday - Jan. 21, 2025 - Chadsey Lake trail improvements coming

🌤 High 4C

Good morning!

Over the weekend, a friend and I came up with a quick-fire way to stave off future colds and flus: kindergarten teachers. Sure, we may have absolutely no medical training or scientific basis for our musings. And yes, the idea seems straight out of a a sci-fi dystopia in some Apple+ series. But when has that stopped someone from baselessly speculating on the internet?

Our modest proposal is based around the ongoing survival and health of kindergarten teachers. How do they do that? How do you spend five days a week with 18 snivelling, coughing, and booger-sharing children and not end up in a constant state of ill health? Any parent of such a child is constantly sick, as Grace can attest. The only valid explanation for the teachers’ survival is that they have developed super-human immune systems based on years of exposure to the least-hygienic humans in existence.

There must be a way to use those immune systems to benefit the larger population. Look, I’m not saying we force kindergarten teachers to donate their blood so it can be sold on the black market to the highest bidder, raising money for Canada’s financially strapped education and health systems. Buuuuut….

– Tyler

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope (We have had to temporarily change our forecast links to the Weather Network due to a technical error.)

🚘 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

Langley Township borrowed $75 million to buy land… somewhere

The Township of Langley has approved a $75 million loan to buy ‘strategic land’ somewhere in Langley. 📷️ Josef Hanus/Shutterstock; Grace Kennedy

The Township of Langley is set to borrow nearly $75 million dollars to buy “strategic land” for the municipality—although it’s not clear exactly which land the township plans to purchase.

Related

Need to Know

✈ A historic airplane flew (via a crane) to a new location at Langley’s airport [Cloverdale Reporter]

🍺 Bricklayer Brewing in downtown Chilliwack will close at the end of the month [Bricklayer Brewing/Facebook]

🚨 Abbotsford police say they’ve busted dozens of impaired drivers over the first three weeks of January [Abbotsford News]

🔊 Kent council has been asked to approve the municipality’s first cannabis store [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🚚 A Hope cement-maker wants to increase its gravel operations [Hope Standard]

👉 Chilliwack has no extreme-weather shelter beds, leaving advocates to ask residents to assist homeless people in need [Chilliwack Progress]

🚔 Langley City’s mayor is asking for a mediator to help settle a dispute about policing with the Township [Langley Advance Times]

⚖ Two men have been charged with a 2024 stabbing at an Abbotsford prison [Abbotsford News]

👉 A Chilliwack woman who operates a Ukrainian restaurant is retiring [Fraser Valley Today]

🍷 Plan a trip to Vancouver this winter to explore the world of wine at the Vancouver International Wine Festival, February 22-March 2.*

*Sponsored Listing

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Commercial Truck Parking Strategy Questionnaire

We’d love your input on Abbotsford’s updated Commercial Truck Parking Strategy! View the 5 proposed strategies online and then take our quick questionnaire to provide your feedback.

The Agenda

The Fraser Valley Regional District is planning to spend more than $100,000 to improve the trail to Chadsey Lake on Sumas Mountain. 📷 Sebastien Marie/Shutterstock

Chadsey Lake trail set for upgrades

From trail improvements to better outhouses, the Fraser Valley’s regional parks are slated for a variety of upgrades and improvements over the next year.

The Fraser Valley Regional District’s proposed budget lays out a range of improvements and maintenance work for the coming years in FVRD-run parks. The budget has yet to be adopted, but generally doesn’t change much after staff present it to the FVRD board in public for the first time. The suggested new projects include:

  • $125,000 for upgrades to the Chadsey Lake Trail

  • $28,000 for better pit toilets at Matsqui Trail Regional Park

  • $20,000 to repair eroded trails on Elk and Cheam mountains (as part of $100,000 worth of work over the next five years)

  • $185,000 to maintain or repair the boardwalk on Cheam Lake

Hope’s arena is also set to get a $210,000 electric zamboni.

The FVRD’s board members will discuss the proposed budget at a meeting on Thursday. You can view the proposed budget here.

Feds say flood insurance program still coming in 2025

Last week, we wrote about the federal government’s lack of tangible progress on policies meant to mitigate future flood damage. We also reported that the Insurance Board of Canada, a lobbying group for Canadian insurance companies, was unhappy that funding for a new flood insurance program was not included in the government’s fall economic statement. The federal government didn’t respond to our requests for comment until yesterday, when a spokesperson wrote that Ottawa still plans to establish the program in 2025.

“The work to stand up a national flood insurance program is fully resourced through funding decisions in Budget 2023 and Budget 2024 and progress continues as intended to deliver a program for Canadians in high-risk areas that is fair for taxpayers in 2025,” the spokesperson wrote.

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Tyler Olsen

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