Monday - June 23, 2025 - Chilliwack doubles parking fines

☁ High 24C

Good morning!

Tyler said so many nice things about me in the intro last week, and now it’s my turn to say nice things about him.

Before I started at The Current, I had never had a real editor. My editors at the Cloverdale Reporter and North Delta Reporter were a delight—but all of us were pretty new to journalism. Real mentors were few and far between. When I moved to the Agassiz-Harrison Observer, there were even fewer people I could learn from. (A one-person newsroom is a lonely place.)

Cue a windstorm meeting where Tyler asked if I would be interested in joining a new Fraser Valley publication. Tyler didn’t own the newsletter—Overstory Media Group is our parent company—but he was the journalist who knew the Fraser Valley needed a publication that could bring the community together across city lines.

I am so grateful I said yes to Tyler’s proposition. I have learned so much from him over the last four years—not just from the substantial editing he has given my work, but also from his impressive data reporting, his successful FOI applications (I still don’t have the knack for those yet), and his leadership during major events like the Fraser Valley flood. The Fraser Valley Current would not have been as successful without his hard work, and I would not be the journalist I am today without his support over the last four years.

– Grace

The Fraser Valley Current is an Overstory Media publication. Click here to subscribe to our sister publication, the Georgia Straight.

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

Gaming while female

She wanted a low-stakes extracurricular to enjoy with her friends: something new that didn’t have to be graded. She thought competitive video games might be the ticket.

Michele Kasama is a straight-A, Grade 11 student at G.W. Graham Secondary School in Chilliwack. Her after-school time is divided between studying and her part-time job, but it can be a struggle to balance the demands of high school with an enjoyment of teenagehood.

When she heard about the new competitive video game league starting at her school, she and some friends decided to join. So what if she barely knew how to hold a controller?

“I wanted to learn how to play,” she said. “I don't do computer games. I have, like, zero skills. I have no clue. I had friends and they knew how to do it, I thought it would be something fun to do together.”

Her friends turned out to be onto something. Video games were a blast. Kasama and her friends had joined a small group of girls who banded together in computer teacher Jenny Cho’s room during lunch hours to play. But gaming was also embarrassing, Kasama said. With so little knowledge of the controls, Kasama died almost instantly each game. And when she played against some of the boys during G.W. Graham’s in-school eSports tournament, the challenges were even more pronounced.

“My brain wasn't connected to my fingers. My fingers just landed wherever they wanted,” she said.

That’s all changing. She has improved significantly over the last year, thanks to practice and support from her fellow girl gamers.

“I know a little bit more strategy,” she said. “It takes a little bit longer to kill me.”

But the need for all that practice highlights some of the challenges of gaming while female.

“With the [girls], I was a little bit more comfortable,” Kasama said. “But when I played with the guys, they were a little bit more brutal about it.”

• Today, Grace looks at some of the difficulties of being a girl gamer, and why G.W. Graham’s eSports league isn’t the only one to struggle attracting girls.

Related

Need to Know

⚖ A Langley film studio has won its lawsuit against the municipality, after the Township attempted to collect millions in amenity contributions [Langley Advance Times]

👉 A Chilliwack man has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a 64-year-old Mission man in 2022 [CBC/CP]

🚁 Police in Agassiz shot and wounded a woman last Thursday [CTV]

🚔 Langley Township isn’t the only municipality looking to carve off its police force from its neighbours—despite officials calling for more police integration, not less [Vancouver Sun]

💔 Sts’ailes elders are creating safe spaces in their community for people who lost family members to toxic drugs [First Nations Health Authority]

🛶 A Langley man’s dedication to citizen science on a Sunshine Coast lake has earned him an award from a BC stewardship society [Langley Advance Times]

🐱 A cougar was spotted on Chilliwack’s Little Mountain last week [Chilliwack Progress] / In 2022, The Current reported on the cougars that live in BC’s backcountry, and why most cougars want nothing to do with us [FVC]

🏎 A Surrey racer broke a world record at the Mission Raceway earlier this month [Mission Record]

🥽 Drowning doesn’t look like what you’d expect from the movies: it’s quiet, subdued, and can happen even when a child is right next to their parent [Slate]

🩺 American doctors are ready to come to Canada, but Canada’s licensing log-jam is holding them back [Canada Health Watch]

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The Agenda

Chilliwack doubles parking fines

People who run afoul of some of Chilliwack’s parking rules will soon be facing stiffer penalties.

Council hiked parking fines last week, meaning people who exceed parking time limits will need to pay $40 (compared to $20 before) and people who use accessible parking spots without the proper placard will be fined $100, rather than $50. Other violations, including parking in a loading zone or a no parking zone, are going from $30 to $50. The city’s impound fee is also increasing from $40 to $100.

There is some good news for negligent parkers: the fine will be cut in half if the payment is received by the city within 10 calendar days. Previously, the fines would be reduced if they were received within three working days.

Staff said that Chilliwack hadn’t adjusted its fines in over 30 years. The previous fine schedule was significantly less than comparable municipalities, and even the amended fines are lower than some other regions: Abbotsford parking violators are fined $75 for most infractions, while Mission is around the $70 mark. (Disabled parking infractions cost violators $250 in that city.)

Coun. Jeff Shields asked why Chilliwack’s fines were still so low, even with the increase, suggesting it wouldn’t be enough of a deterrent for frequent violators. Staff noted that Chilliwack has a separate system where it can target repeat offenders with higher fines.

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🤝 Now hiring

• Rehabilitation assistant at Fraser Valley Child Development Centre in Abbotsford

• Senior accountant at the City of Chilliwack

• Mechanic at Audi Langley

• Research chemical engineer at Lumex Instruments in Mission

• Site leader at Park Place Seniors Living in Agassiz

Hiring in the Fraser Valley? Reply back and let us know!

🗓 Things to do

Pride film: The Chilliwack Library hosts a screening of A Mother Apart today at 5:30pm for its Pride Film Club. The screening is for people 19 and older. Details online.

Radio day: The Abbotsford Amateur Radio Emergency Services Society hosts a field day at Mill Lake from noon on Saturday, June 28 to noon on Sunday, June 29. The radio operators will be on site for the full 24 hours, contacting other operating stations from around the world. Details online.

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