Friday - June 14, 2024 - Chilliwack trustees issue own report card

🌦 High 18C

Good morning!

I had an interview set up yesterday at the Stave Lake Powerhouse, but fate intervened. And by fate, I mean my car. And by car, I mean a series of faulty wires hidden somewhere in the engine. 

It was frustrating to get into the vehicle only to realize that, instead of driving to Mission, I would be limping to the mechanic. But there is a silver lining. This issue has been intermittent, only rarely popping up to ruin my travel plans before hunkering down for a month or more. I finally caught it when I could just drive straight to the shop, and tell them to keep the car as long as they needed. 

Fingers crossed that it stays broken long enough for the mechanics to fix the problem. And when they do, I can head back out to the dam to get that story. (I promise it will be worth it!)

– Grace

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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

Fort Langley’s newest waterfront plan

For nearly two decades, the Township of Langley has been trying to figure out what to do with its portion of the Fort Langley waterfront.

Over the years, the three-acre plot of land has been subject to various redesign schemes that have aimed to turn its modest boardwalk, parking lot, and boat launch into a riverside destination. So far, none of the plans have stuck. But the municipality and others keep trying, and for a good reason.

Fort Langley’s riverside park is one of the only municipally-owned developable waterfronts in all of the Fraser Valley. (The other is in Mission, where the city has its own plans to capitalize on its riverfront.) And now the Township has developed a new plan featuring a plaza, amphitheatre, and treetop walkway that it hopes will turn the area into a major attraction.

• Today, Grace digs into the Township of Langley’s latest plan for the Fort Langley waterfront, and looks at the other plans that have failed on the property.

Related

Need to Know

🚓 An armed takedown in Langley ended in the arrest of several men Thursday [Langley Advance Times]

🚍 A pickup truck hit an empty school bus in Mission an hour before three more vehicles crashed into each other Monday [Mission City Record]

💐 Langley pioneers were honoured at a banquet last weekend [Langley Advance Times]

☕ Abbotsford’s Brodeur's Bistro will be moving to Langley next month [Abbotsford News]

🧻 Metro Vancouver politicians are calling for BC’s auditor general to review cost overruns at the North Shore wastewater treatment plant [Global] / The $4 billion project will cost Langley households an additional $90/year, even though they do not use the treatment plant [Metro Vancouver]

📽 Abbotsford students and teachers shared advice with their past and future selves in a new video series [Abbotsford News]

🎒 School districts across BC are facing budget deficits, despite increasing student enrollment [The Tyee]

🚂 Chilliwack Mayor Ken Popove says CN Rail is asking too much of the city in its effort to prevent pedestrian fatalities [Fraser Valley Today]

🌈 Hope’s Pride Festival will be back for its second year on June 22 [Hope Standard]

👉 The RCMP’s emergency response team helped arrest a man who allegedly assaulted and robbed a woman in Mission [Mission Record]

🌼 The Chilliwack Rotary Club is organizing its ‘great garden snoop’ to give locals inspiration for their own growing spaces [Chilliwack Progress]

🥍 The Langley Thunder lacrosse team defeated Maple Ridge 9-7 to notch consecutive wins for the first time this season [Langley Advance Times]

🩺 Fraser Health offered doctors thousands of dollars to cover a single shift at Mission Hospital [CTV]

📷 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to Lorna, who was the first person to identify that this week’s Current Cam was of Abbotsford School of Integrated Arts’ North Poplar location.

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The Agenda

Chilliwack school board still has to get better at working together, trustees say

The Chilliwack school board has come a long way from the intense dysfunction of the previous election cycle, but there is still more to work on, trustees say.

Trustees recently completed a self-evaluation about their ability to work as a team, support students, and cooperate with other groups. As a whole, trustees said the board was doing well at supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, but still had room to improve in most other areas.

Overall, trustees said they were getting better at adhering to board policy, working with Indigenous groups, having productive relationships with partner organizations, and supporting student achievement. But, they weren’t quite there yet. The board also said they needed to work on understanding their governance role, having a consistent level of transparency, and working effectively and cooperatively as a board.

The report noted that six of the seven trustees participated in guided discussions about the self-evaluation with a facilitator during two in-camera meetings. The one missing trustee was Heather Maahs, who was re-elected to the school board after campaigning with Barry Neufeld and other socially conservative candidates. Maahs has been banned from in-camera meetings since February of this year after she was alleged to have breached the confidentiality of such a meeting. That ban marked her third censure since being re-elected to the board.

Maahs noted at the Tuesday meeting that her thoughts on the Chilliwack school board’s performance were not recorded in the performance review.

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💾 Flashback Friday

The Coquihalla Highway was one of BC’s most ambitious highway construction projects, creating a road that stretched from Hope to Peachland and Kamloops. But it took a considerable amount of time to actually open. The highway route was proposed in 1973, with an official survey undertaken in 1978. The actual highway, however, wasn’t built for another eight years. The province accelerated both design and construction in 1984, in a desperate attempt to have the highway finished in time for Expo 86. Over the summer of 1985, more than 10,000 people and more than 1,000 pieces of heavy equipment worked on the highway every day to have it finished in time for Expo.

The Hope-to-Merritt route opened on May 16, 1986, with the Merritt-to-Kamloops and Kamloops-to-Peachland sections completed later. The province created several films of its construction, including one available at the Vancouver Archives.

🗓 Things to do

Fishing derby: The annual Cultus Lake Fishing Derby returns Saturday, June 15. Fishing is free, although people who want to win prizes will need to register for a ticket. Details online.

Psychedelic comedy: Shane Mauss heads to Hope for A Better Trip on Saturday, June 15 at New Hope Cinema. The immersive, science-inspired, psychedelic comedy experience will start at 7:30pm. Tickets online.

Father’s Day: The Kilby Historic Site is hosting a dads-versus-kids butter and ice cream making competition at 1pm on Father's Day, June 16. Details online.

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